ODTAA: A novel

by John Masefield

VI

When he had slept for nearly a watch, he was wakened by a ticking as though the wind were shaking a slat in a Venetian blind. As the noise continued, he sat up, thinking, “Here is the breeze. I’ll have to shut my window.”

He realised, then, that the noise was from the door. It was a little light ticking noise, not unlike the gnawing of a mouse, except that it never varied nor grated.

“It’s only a death-watch,” he said. “No, it’s the breeze, rattling the door. I’ll jam it up with a piece of paper.” He turned out of bed and groped in the dark for the cover of his paper-backed novel. “I’ll wedge it up with this,” he thought. He tore off the cover and folded it into a wedge.

“By George,” he thought, suddenly, with a leaping heart. “It isn’t the door rattling, it’s somebody knocking.”

It was no doubt somebody knocking, but with a special secret midnight knock which might awaken him but alarm no other person on the corridor.

“By George,” he thought, “somebody’s tapping with finger-nails. This is romance, by George. I’ll have to be jolly careful now, or very likely I’ll have my throat cut. Who can be knocking?”

He could not think who would be knocking, but he did not for one moment think that it was a woman come for love of him. He was not frightened. The knocking was of a piece with the romance of the day before. It gave him a thrill of delight to think that the knocker might be in peril and the knock a warning to himself.

“Why not?” he thought. “I’m a foreigner here, as well as a heretic. Why shouldn’t there be a sort of Bartholomew massacre beginning?”

He crept to the door. The key was in the keyhole; he could see nothing there but darkness. By the fanlight, he could tell that the corridor beyond was almost pitch dark. The knocker paused, as though he had heard the creak of his approach.

“Who is there?” Hi whispered. “Who is there?”

To his amazement, Rosa answered him.

“It is I, Rosa. Rosa Piranha. Open, Hi; open quick.”

He opened the door swiftly yet silently; Rosa glided in.

“It’s only me, Hi,” she whispered. “I thought I’d never make you hear. Lock the door, lock it, but don’t make a sound. Oh, my God, my God.”

“I’ll strike a light,” he said. “Whatever is the matter? I’ll have a light in a minute.”

“No light,” she said. “Don’t strike a light. We might be seen from outside.”

“I must get you a light,” he whispered, “or you’ll be falling over things, and rousing the house.”

He struck a match: he had a glimpse of Rosa dressed as a peon with a sombrero jammed over her eyes.

“I’ll sit on the bed,” she whispered. “Put the match out, Hi.”

He put out the match; she sat on the bed and began to shudder till the bed quaked. As he did not know what to do, he did nothing. He stood well away from Rosa, waiting for her to speak.

“Good old Rosa,” he said at last.

“Yes, good old Rosa,” she said with a giggle; then she trembled until she began to sob.

“Good Lord, Rosa,” he said, “pull yourself together. Good Lord, what is it? What has happened?”

“Those devils, Hi. They’ve got Carlotta.”

“What devils? The Pitubas?”

“Yes. At least, I don’t know if they were Pitubas. Anyhow the Reds have got her.”

“But I saw her after seven o’clock.”

“They arrested her at ten. They got her brother, too. They’re rounding up all the Whites. A peon of the de Leyvas came to us to tell us. They shot at him, but he got away. Hi, they’ve put her into prison. The Reds have put Carlotta into prison.”

“Good Lord. But, hang it, Rosa, they’ve got no case against her. They’ll certainly let her out in the morning.”

“But Lopez has gone mad, Hi. We don’t know what is happening.”

“But . . . good Lord. It’s four o’clock in the morning; more. How on earth did you get in? Look here, is there anything that I can do?”

“They’ve got her in their prison on a charge of resisting authority, or being deemed to be the associate of those planning to resist authority. The peon heard her deny the first charge. The officer said that he should arrest her on the other. And they may shoot her, Hi.”

“Shoot Carlotta? Never.”

“They may.”

“Oh, hang it, Rosa.”

“This isn’t England, Hi, but a place where we hate; you don’t know how we hate. Mother cannot stand these shocks, but I had to wake her and tell her. She said at once, ‘We must get word through to Manuel.’ ”

Here she stopped at a horrible memory.

“Go ahead,” Hi said.

“This isn’t like England, Hi,” she said. “Twice, even in my life-time, Whites and Reds have made it dangerous for each other. So we make arrangements and codes for messages. We had one of our boys, Estevan Osmeña, sworn to take a message in case of need. We roused him up. Our horses were gone, as you saw; the horses are always the first thing they take, but we sent him off to where he could get a horse. I thought nobody saw him go.”

Here she stopped to tremble till the bed seemed to giggle at her.

“Go on,” Hi said, “cheer up and go on.”

“About two hours ago,” she said, “when we had all gone back to bed, a patrol rode up to the house and summoned mother to open the door. I said that she was too ill, but that I would open. So I lit up and opened. There was the mulatto, Zarzas, with some Pitubas. He said, ‘This is for you.’ He gave me Estevan’s hand, cut off at the wrist, with mother’s letter pinned to it. He said, ‘This is the Dead Letter Post; the White letter comes back Red. I would recommend you send no more.’

“Then I had to serve him and his men with drinks, of course; he called it ‘postage for midnight delivery.’ ”

“Then they had killed your groom?”

“Yes.”

“I say,” Hi said. “But hold on a minute, I’ll just dress, if you’ll excuse me. But tell me, how did you pass the patrols and the gates?”

“Market people can always pass in the early mornings. I brought in a basket of flowers like a gardener’s peon. You remember Manuel said at lunch that there was a way into this hotel at the back. I came in by that. I knew your floor and room. But I nearly died of terror when I heard the negroes at their gambling.”

“I don’t wonder. But I say you have got some pluck.”

“Oh, Hi, forgive me,” she said, “but you’re the only person I can think of. Will you take the news to Manuel?”

“Why, of course I will, Rosa. I wanted to last night but Carlotta wouldn’t let me. I’ll go like a shot.”

She fell upon her knees and kissed his hands, calling upon God and the saints to bless him.

“That’s all right, Rosa,” he said. “That’s all right. We’ll save her.”

“This devil, Lopez, is going to wipe out the Whites,” she said.

“Not he,” Hi said. “Don’t you think it, Rosa.”

“What is to stop him? We’re all in his power.”

“Not you,” Hi said. “He’s done something wicked and stupid, which won’t prosper; you’ll see it won’t. Now about getting to Manuel. I don’t know a word of Spanish, except Dios and si and the oaths those sailors told me. Where can I get a horse, to begin with? I suppose all the livery stables will be closed?”

“You’ll get no horse here.”

“Even though I’m English?”

“No. This city is isolated. No trains, no horses. You’ll have to walk to a place called Anselmo, about fifteen miles from here.”

“You mean, out past the de Leyvas’ place? That Anselmo?”

“Yes. There are two White brothers there, the Elenas, George and William, horse-breeders. They will give you horses and put you in the way to get relays further west. There are two ways of getting to Anselmo; one, by the road, past the de Leyvas’ place, which you’d have to walk; the other is, to take a boat down the bay, nine or ten miles, to the place La Boca, where you could probably hire a horse or trap and ride or drive there.”

“How would I take a boat?”

“At the pier there are scores of market-boats. Ask for Pedro Ruiz and ask him to take you to La Boca. If Pedro isn’t there, dozens of others will be; they’re mostly Italians.”

“I’ll make them understand,” Hi said. “Will they let me down the pier?”

“Yes, if you aren’t stopped beforehand.”

“The boat way seems the quicker,” he said. “I’ll try the boat way. But look here, Rosa, they’ll surely watch the boats for people trying to get away.”

“They may, but that and the road are the only ways to Anselmo.”

“Well, we’d better try both. Why not send my old English murderer from Medinas? He’d go like a shot and you could trust him absolutely.”

“That is an idea, Hi. I suppose he can ride?”

“He was a stable-lad in his youth. He was even a jockey once, of sorts, I think they said, but he was warned off for something or other. I know he sounds awful; so he is, as well as a little mad, but I know that you could trust him.”

“You say that he is mad? Could he remember a message?”

“Yes.”

“All he’ll have to remember is, ‘Reds have seized Carlotta: come at once’; that and the address, ‘Don Manuel, Encinitas.’ ”

“He’ll have to know more than that,” Hi said. “He’ll have to get the horses out of these Elena people, at Anselmo.”

“Our code word, Dorothea, will do that.”

“And suppose the Elenas aren’t there?”

“George or William must be there.”

“Right, then; between us we’ll fix it. I say, this is exciting. You are a brick to come to me for this.”

“If you knew what I think of you for taking it as you do.”

“I suppose,” Hi said, “I suppose there’s no means of telegraphing from Anselmo to Don Manuel.”

“None. We’ve no telegraphs here, except along the railways, and no railway at all across the central provinces. You’ll have to ride.”

“No means of telegraphing to anyone, in code, or something of that sort? It would save so much time.”

“The telegraphs are all under censorship, no message would be sent. There’s no telegraph within seventy miles of Encinitas, anyway.”

“It’ll be a long ride,” Hi said. “I wish I were more in trim for a long ride. It will take three days.”

“Oh, Hi.”

“I might do it in two, with luck.”

“Oh, if you only can,” she said.

“Now how about you.”

“I’ll be all right.”

“I’m blest if you will be. I’ll see you home.”

“Oh, Hi; no.”

“Yes, I will.”

“No, no, Hi. I shan’t be stopped with my market basket and in this dress. And by the Farola there is a short cut through the waste to our garden.”

“I’ll see you there, then. I must. I’ve got to ask you scores of things which I must know. When you’re reasonably safe, I’ll get to Medinas, see my murderer off, and then come back to the pier and yell for Pedro Ruiz.”

“Please God, the boats will be late this morning,” she said.

“Why?”

“If they come early, they go early; there may be no boat for you.”

“Golly.”

“There’s a lot to say ‘Golly’ about in this Republic.”

“There’s more in it than meets the eye,” he said. “I suppose you’ve got no map of this city?”

“No. Why?”

“Can I get to Medinas from the pier without going back through the city?”

“Yes, easily. There’s a road from the Farola to Medinas, on the line of the old city ditch.”

“All right, then; that’s a weight off my chest. Our main task is to get out of this hotel to the pier: if we can do that, we shall be fairly clear. Will there be patrols on the roads outside the walls, or people on the watch at La Boca and Anselmo?”

“Probably.”

“All right,” he said, to cheer her. “We’ll fix them. I suppose the Elenas will know some English?”

“Not much; but if you say Dorothea to them, they’ll make your next course clear, even if they have to send a guide with you.”

“Good. I think I’ve got it all pretty straight. All right. I’m ready. We’ll start, then. Oh, but wait one minute. I must get something out of my trunk.”

Some hours before, when he had returned from Carlotta, he had pressed her spray of hermosita between two sheets of the hotel blotting-paper, which he had then laid away in the trunk. He now opened this precious packet, broke off a leaf from the spray, and placed it in his pocket-book; the rest he put back into the trunk. He then wrote a few words to the hotel proprietor.

“I’m ready now,” he said. “I’ll leave this note to say that I’m coming back, and want my room kept.”

“Oh, Hi,” she said, “I’ve brought no money.”

“I have got money enough,” Hi said, “but I have not got a revolver. Father wouldn’t let me take one. I knew he knew nothing about it. Now we had better have a story in case we’re stopped. We had better say that your mother wanted me and that you had come to fetch me. They couldn’t object to that. Where is your market basket? In the cellar?”

“No, in the hall.”

“We had better go out by the hall,” he said. “And I had better take no baggage. Then they would ask no questions. If I were caught going out with a bag, they would think I was shooting the moon. I have got some handkerchiefs. That’s enough.”

“What will they think of my market basket?” she said. “They will think I have come to steal the linen.”

“Leave it here,” Hi said.

“But I must have it to pass the gates.”

“Well, you can show that it’s empty,” he said. “We must chance it. Come on.”

They crept out into the deserted corridor, where all was silent save for a snorer in one of the near-by rooms. They crept to the stairs. All seemed silent on the landing below. On the next floor they heard a child wake up with a whimper. The coarse voice of a nurse from one of the French-speaking islands called “Chocolat” to quiet it. As this failed she made a testy reproof and turned grunting out of bed.

All seemed silent on the floor below. Rosa touched Hi’s arm at the stairs.

“There’s a night porter asleep there,” she said, “on that sofa on the landing.”

“He’s sound asleep,” Hi said. “Come on.”

On the third step from the bottom the porter had left a small tray with glasses and a soda-water bottle. Hi trod upon this, so that both he and it fell. The glasses broke, the soda-water bottle rolled on to the broad uncarpeted steps which led to the ground floor. It fell on to the first step, then on to the second, then on, step by step, making a noise like “Keblonk, Keblonk” at each step. Hi sat on the mat at the stair-foot in fits of laughter. Rosa stood beside him, giggling hysterically.

“Hark at the beastly thing going ‘Keblonk,’ ” he said.

With a little tinkle the bottle rolled itself still. The porter on the sofa sneezed suddenly and sat up.

“Oh, for de Lord,” he said.

“For de Lord,” Hi said.

He and Rosa clutched each other, shaking with laughter.

“Oh, you lovely angels, keep away the flies,” said the porter and settled himself to sleep again.

“Come along,” Hi whispered. “He’s asleep. We must slide down the banisters of this flight. Don’t kick old Keblonk as you pass.”

All was dark on the ground floor, but far away some servant was already sweeping. This was the only sound save the occasional crackle in the wicker chairs, as though some ghost had sat down or arisen. In front of them was the main entrance of the hotel, a glass barrier, broad steps with deserted offices at each side, then the front doors. A light was burning in the office to the left. Hi stole forward upon tip-toe.

“The night porter’s asleep in the office,” he whispered.

He stole through the glass doors and tried the front doors, which were locked and the key not there.

“The key’s gone,” he whispered.

“It’s in the office, I expect,” she said.

He looked, but could not see it on the key hooks nor on the table.

“It must be somewhere here,” she said.

“I expect he’s got it in his pocket,” he whispered.

There came a little flop upon the floor. Rosa had knocked off a time-table from the edge of the table. The man stirred in his sleep but did not wake.

“If he’s got it in his trouser pocket,” Hi whispered, “or even in his side pocket, we’re done.”

“Well, Hi,” she whispered, “come on down the back way through the cellar. Besides, I have got to get my flower basket.”

“Oh, dash, I had forgotten the flower basket.”

“Hi,” Rosa said, “there’s someone coming.”

They edged out into the hall as some of the hall lights went up. A woman with a broom came along the corridor. She took a good look at them, and Hi said, “It’s all right, thanks. I’m English.”

She seemed to think that it was not quite all right. She made a gesture to show Hi that he could rouse the porter.

“Si, si,” Hi said, “but it’s absolutely all right, thanks.”

“Are you looking for the key?” she asked in English. “The key is here on this palm.”

She unhooked a key from one of the stubs of the palm tree, fitted it to the lock and opened the door. She gave a searching glance at Rosa. She closed the door behind them on the instant.

The breeze was coming in from the sea bitterly cold. They looked up and down the deserted street. They saw no sign of life except a cat on the other side of the road.

“Come on,” Hi said, “down to the water-front.”

In the darkness of the cross roads a mounted policeman, drawn into the shadows, watched them approach without making a sign. When they were within a few yards of him he put his horse suddenly across their path.

“It’s all right. I’m English,” Hi said.

The man seemed to have orders not to molest foreigners. He drew his horse back and jerked with his hand for them to pass. Perhaps it was a guilty conscience which made them think that he stared hard at Rosa. Anyhow he let them pass.

On the water-front the tide of life had begun to flow to the quays. Men and women were going to work that had to be done, whatever rebellion came. They saw the bright light at the pier end.

“It’s there,” Rosa whispered, “that the market-boats come.”

Two men who were slouching in front of them paused to light cigarettes. They watched Hi and Rosa as they passed and made remarks evidently very offensive, which made Rosa catch her breath.

“Come on. Don’t stop,” Rosa whispered.

Colour was all over the eastern heaven and touching the upper roofs and spires.

“Hi,” Rosa said, when they had gone a little distance, “we shall never be able to do it. I am seen to be a woman and there is a patrol in the streets stopping people.”

“Where?”

“There in front.”

About a hundred yards in front of them there was an interruption in the flow of people. They could see the gleam of helmets beyond the blackness of the crowd, which grew greater as men and women flocked up to it. Plainly the police or troops were examining all who were going that way.

“Hi,” Rosa said, “I can’t face the police in this dress. It’s very silly, but I shall faint.”

“Hold up,” Hi said. “It will be perfectly all right. We will get down to that barge on the beach there and you can pin your cloak round you for a skirt.”

Within a stone’s throw from the water-front was a green barge, which Hi had noticed on the day of his landing. She was lying on her bilge with the butts of her timbers sticking out like bones. In the shelter of this wreck Rosa pinned her cloak as a skirt and made her hat look less manly. After this they marched into the crowd, which closed up behind them as others arrived. It was a silent crowd of men and women not fully awake. One or two voices asked, “What are they stopping us for?” Some said, “Dogana,” or “Search of suspects,” or “Search of the accursed Whites, the murderers.”

The light grew upon the faces at each instant, the crowd gathered and the delay continued.

“What are they stopping us for?”

“Close up, brothers.”

“Who are you shoving?”

“It’s not me that’s shoving.”

“This way for the harem. Get your money ready.”

“The whistle will be gone. We shall be fined half a peseta.”

“What are they stopping us for?”

No one could answer that question.

Hi could make out that several times a minute one or two people in front were allowed to pass on. At every such passing the crowd surged forward till they were all jammed up together, feeling breathless and inclined to faint. They could hear a kind of catechism going on at the barrier, voices bullying and voices submissive.

“Why can’t they let us pass? What are they asking?”

The crowd was not to know why they were stopped. After they had annoyed some hundreds of people with it, the police suddenly removed the barrier and told the people that they might get along out of it. The crowd slowly surged forward among growls of “Keeping us waiting all this time and in the end they didn’t want us. Now we shall be fined a peseta for being late.”

They passed through the city gates, to the open space where the market folk had cheered the Piranhas the day before.

“There is the pier, Hi,” Rosa said. “I can get home through that waste piece, the old graveyard. You go up that gully to the right, to Medinas.”

“All right. Good luck. I’ll fetch Manuel.”

“God bless you, Hi.”

“You, too. My love to your mother. And good luck. And cheer up.”

She nodded, not having more words; she turned out of the stream of workers into the old graveyard of the town and did not look back.

As Hi set off for Medinas, he looked back several times after her, till she had disappeared.

“She’s got some pluck,” he thought. “I don’t think she’ll be stopped now, going that way.”

His own way led through a road which having once been the city ditch, was still a city dump and refuse pit under the walls. On the left hand of the refuse were shacks and sties of wood, for pigs, cows, horses and fowls; though men lived in them, too. The road was an unpaven track in a kind of gulley between the dump and the sheds. It was in a mucky state at that time from the recent rains and the habits of the market people. It stank, it was littered with tins and stalks, rats were rummaging among the garbage, and pariah dogs with the mange were scraping against the sides of the sties. However, no men were abroad in it nor any sign of a patrol. In about twelve minutes he was in Medinas.

For some minutes he had noticed a glow upon the city buildings, which he had thought to be the dawn. He now found that it came from the red-hot shell of what had been the de Leyva palace, which had been burnt since midnight. A good many Medinas people were grubbing in the embers for what they could find. Others were carrying away what they had already found. A heap of things of all sorts, armour, pictures, marbles, bronzes, furniture, porcelain, curtains, clothes, cushions, musical instruments, antiques, books, and portfolios, which had been looted before the fire took hold, were being sold to all comers by a ruffian with a big voice, who bellowed aloud his bargains, joked, tossed the money received to a guard of Reds, and often gave away what he could not readily sell. He was in the act of selling a bronze female torso when Hi came up. Hi noticed among the crowd the broad-faced picture-dealer who had been rude two days before on the water-front. This man winked at the auctioneer that the bronze should be set aside for him. The auctioneer stopped his obscene remarks and laid it aside.

* * * * * * *

Medinas Close looked marvellous in that light of nearly dawn, helped out by dying lamps. Its well of tall, mean, narrow tenements, built on a slope, about a triangle of grassless earth, needed some murderous half-light to give it its quality. At the entrance to the Close an imbecile woman, with the face of a corpse, held her hand for alms. At the entrance of No. 41, black as the mouth of a cave, two little boys, who talked through their noses as though their throats were rotted away, were sharing what they had stolen from the burning. Most of the Medinas tenants had been picking plums from that same snapdragon. In the well of the Close were some chairs and other furniture which had been pitched down and smashed, because they would not readily go through the narrow doors.

“On the third floor,” Hi said to himself, “the middle room of the three, if I don’t have my throat cut on the way.” He went into that black cave, which stank of rat and mouse; he struck himself a light so that he might see the stairs, and came at once on a woman and a man clasped at the stair-foot. He saw the woman’s eyes, like the eyes in a skull. The man detached himself from her; he stank of wine, she of musk. “You like to see my sister?” he said, thickly to Hi.

“No.”

“Three pesetas.”

“No.”

“Two pesetas.”

“No.”

“You like to buy a nice watch, very cheap, very good?” The woman, who had caught some glimpse of Hi, said something in a low voice, which made the man stand aside to let Hi pass to the next floor, where a man was beating his wife in the intervals of a sermon. The morning light gleamed a little on to this landing from a room which had no door. Up above was the third floor, much darker, being lit only with a taper.

Some weeks before this a man had been murdered at the head of the stairs there. The dwellers of 41, having scruples about the murder, had placed upon the wall a coloured print of the Virgin, to whom they lit a taper each night. This taper now showed Hi the three doors of the landing; he knocked gently on the middle door.

After knocking a second time, he was aware of a tenseness in the room within, though no one answered. At a third knock, he felt, rather than heard, other doors in the tenement softly opened, while unseen eyes took stock of him. Someone inside the room was moving something: “putting something under the bed,” he thought. A board dropped with a clatter, then a chair (so it seemed) was jammed against the door from within, then a woman’s cautious voice asked, “Who is it?”

“Señor Rust,” Hi said, in a low voice, “Señor Rust.”

She did not let him in. He heard her moving about inside, with queer little clicking noises as though she were snapping on some pairs of stays (which indeed she was).

“Señor Rust,” he repeated, “Señor Rust.”

The lamp in the room, which had been turned down, now turned up; the door opened a little; a short, sharp, elderly dwarf of a woman stared at him, and motioned him to come in. He went into a hot little lamp-lit room, where ’Zeke stood stock still, fumbling with his hat, beside the bed. The woman bolted the door carefully behind him. She had a skin like parchment, coloured like old ivory. She looked at him out of sharp, black, beady eyes which missed nothing. Her head trembled a little; her long green ear-rings waggled and clicked. She looked like a gimlet about to pierce. Hi knew, without any telling, that he had come at a ticklish time, when the two were appraising loot from the burning. His knock had been mistaken for the knock of the police. Something had been stuffed under the floor and a mat drawn over the place: ’Zeke was now standing on the mat.

The woman asked him in Spanish about his health, adding that for her own part she asked nothing better from God, since she was ever better after the rains, which, as it was well known, drew away from the air we breathe many most pestilential vapours. Hi replied in English that he was afraid that he came at a very inconvenient time.

“Rust,” he said, “could you take a message for me, and be away, perhaps, for some days?”

“Yes, Master Highworth,” ’Zeke said, “I daresay.”

“Starting at once?”

“Where would it be to, Master Highworth?”

“Could we speak out of doors somewhere?”

“It’s a bit unsettled out of doors, sir. We could slip into the church for a bit.”

“Let us go there, then.”

’Zeke said something with gestures to Isabella, who seemed suspicious and not well pleased. She questioned ’Zeke several times before she let them out. She then followed him to the stair-head with questions, which ’Zeke put from him with gestures and ejaculations. She was not satisfied with these replies, because she went back to the room, growling. Glancing upwards as he entered the Close, Hi saw her head and shoulders craned from the window to see where they were going.

In the almost complete darkness of the church, Hi told ’Zeke what was wanted.

“I been to ’Carnacion,” he said. “It was there I went with my bull, where the rabbits were. It was this Don Manuel owned my bull; only I didn’t go so much by land, as by sea, to Port ’Toche. I know the way to Anselmo; it’s by the Foxes Inn. And I know the Mr. Elenas at Anselmo, Mr. George and Mr. William, only they don’t pronounce it like that. They breed horses, the Mr. Elenas.

“I did a job of work for the Misters Elenas one time. You see, Mr. Highworth, they got a stallion one time; my word, he were a horse, only he wasn’t what we would call a stallion, you understand, being for draught. Not a shire horse, neither, but one of they French sort, really. ‘Whicker,’ he went, and ‘Whicker,’ he went, oh, it was a treat to hear him: down he would go and up he come; and all in play, really: only he hate his grooms, Mr. Highworth, one after the other. It was all in play, really, only they didn’t understand him, that was what it was, really. You know he couldn’t abide velvet, this velvet stuff the grooms wear. You’ve heard of the red rag to a bull? Well, it was the same with him, only velvet. That was all it was. When I showed ’em, they left off this velvet, then he didn’t eat them, except, maybe, now and then a pinch and that. And is that all I’m to say to the Misters Elenas and to Mr. Manuel, just Dorothea, and he’s to come at once?”

“Yes, that’s all. How soon could you reach Anselmo?”

“Three hours and that. But I’ll get a horse out along the road, maybe.”

“It’s a long way to Encarnacion,” Hi said.

“I like a bit of sport, when I get a horse like these country ones that’s got meat on the ribs.”

“You’ll hurry all you can, won’t you? People’s lives depend on it.”

“Dammy, Mr. Highworth, I’ll go like your old grandfather, and like what the old gentleman, old Mr. Ridden done.”

“Thank you.”

“I suppose it’s all right, Master Highworth?”

“Yes, it’s all right.”

“These foreigners aren’t like us, most of the time. They got this devil-worship and all sorts. Now a man likes to know what’s what and that. That’s only fair. But it’s these yellow devils makes them not go above board. They brought in the yellows to rule the whites; it’s that causes all the trouble.”

“That’s the cause of the trouble.”

“Well, I’ll do my best, Mr. Highworth.”

“Thank you. I can’t thank you enough.”

“Nothing I like better, really, than a bit of sport. I was having difficulty, if you understand me, Master Highworth; but then first I met you and now comes this other job. I never had so much luck at one time before, except that once at the races; and then I was cheated of it.”

Hi gave him some money for expenses, thanked him and urged him to go.

“Not by the door we came in by, Mr. Highworth,” he said. “That would never do. Them that see you go in may watch for you out.”

They were near the High Altar as he spoke. The door by which they had entered the church was opened: someone crept into the church. Hi saw the snub-nosed profile of Isabella motionless for an instant, while she sought in the darkness for her prey. ’Zeke on the instant plucked him through a curtain to a swing-door and thence to a lane.

“We dodge the Close this way,” he said, “and I’ll be back in a week or a bit better. And that will be all right, Mr. Highworth; and I thank you, sir, I’m sure, very kindly. And I wish you a happy Christmas, sir, though I know it’s a long time to wait.”

He set off as he finished speaking, in the shambling run with much bending of the leg which old Bill Ridden called “the poachers’ trot.” Hi had often seen old men of the ’Zeke kind running in that way on winter mornings when the hounds moved off to covert. He himself set off at once by the old city ditch to the pier: it was almost full morning. He wondered whether there would be any boat for him.

He also wondered, with some misgivings, about poor old Ezekiel. The phrase, “He never had so much luck at one time before,” smote him to the heart. It might not be much luck; it might be deadly; it certainly would be dangerous, to go off on this errand when the Reds were out. “I’ve taken him from his wife, too,” he thought. “However, she’s no chicken.” As he went on, he wondered whether Isabella might not have seen, chased and caught her husband: in which case the message would not go. Or suppose the Foxes Inn proved too much for him? “I must chance all that,” he thought. “He’s as likely to get through as I am.”

Thinking these things, he came out of the ditch into the colour and life of the racing of the carts to market from the Farola, with fish and fruit. These carts were light, open lorries, each drawn by two horses, driven by natives, who stood bare-armed, cloaked with coloured serapes, singeing their lips with the sucked stubs of cigarettes across which they cursed their horses. The workers scattered from before them as they raced. The horses’ hooves struck fire, the drivers leaned on the reins, beat with their sticks, and screamed:—

“Ar-re. Ar-re, sons of malediction.”

“Accursed be thy fool mare of a mother.”

“Dog of a Pablo, give room.”

“Ay, ay, ay, we bring fish into the city.”

All the carts swayed into each other yet did not touch. They swerved together as the road narrowed for the gate and so disappeared. Hi turned from the open plaza on to the pier. It was then a few minutes after six o’clock.