Next day Adams and Clensy went aboard the La Belle France which sailed in the afternoon. They both felt quite depressed as they watched the Marquesan Isles fade like blue blotches far away on the western horizon. Clensy was every bit as depressed as his comrade. He had thoroughly enjoyed his three months’ sojourn in the beautiful archipelago of golden-skinned men, palms and sylvan valleys shaded by breadfruits and coco-palms. He had also been well liked by the rough traders and shellbacks whom he had come in contact with, for he had often gained the respect and affection of sunburnt men from the seas who hated snobs.
The voyage to the South American coast was extremely monotonous to Clensy. Adams’s constant companionship and swashbuckling deportment on the dreary passage across tropic seas gave Clensy bad intellectual spasms. But still, he patiently tolerated his presence. He probably well knew that Adams too had his place in this scheme of intelligent things, and that one change of a footstep at the beginning of Adams’s career might have made him a splendid Government official or Controller, and well respected by all who didn’t know him! The fact is, that Clensy was by nature a genuine democrat. He was well bred, and so, carelessly unconscious of his worldly advantages over the uneducated men with whom he so readily consorted. He had proper pride, but it was humble enough. His head did not swell overmuch. He could not realise that when he was wealthy, and still dined side by side with penniless shellbacks, he was doing something that should be vigorously blown from the highest peak on democracy’s brass bugle so that it might reverberate and echo down the halls of boasted brotherhood. His nature had no kinship with the great boast of a democracy that shouts: “See how our millionaires sit by the side of the wage-earning cowboy and dine on beans and corn-cobs.” Thus pointing out to all who can see and hear, how wide a gulf really divides the poor man from the eternal boast of the democratic brotherhood. In short, Clensy was a splendid specimen of the democratic-aristocrat Englishman dwelling under the great socialistic government of the human heart. His intellect was fair: he knew that kings could feel humble, and a pope be really religious. He was a gentleman.
Clensy breathed a sigh of relief when he sighted the coast of South America, and the La Belle France eventually entered the ancient bay of Acapulco. But he was greatly disappointed when he discovered that his uncle had left the consulate and had returned to England two months before his arrival. “We’re done!” said Clensy as he realised that he would have to wait quite three months before his remittance money arrived from England. For a long while he and Adams were on their “beam-ends.” Clensy had a few pounds which was augmented by Adams’s musical accomplishments. For the derelict reprobate would go off on his own and perform on his wretched accordion, playing to the Mexican storekeepers. Sometimes he wrapped an old silk robe about him, and putting on a Spanish hidalgo mein, would go busking outside the old-fashioned homesteads of Vera Domingo. So did he help Clensy out of his predicament.
In due course Royal Clensy’s remittance arrived. Acapulco was a quiet, lazy town in those days. The inhabitants were mostly Spaniards, Mexicans and niggers. Consequently Clensy made up his mind to clear out of the place and make for the larger states. What really happened after Clensy received his remittance whilst in Acapulco can only be guessed at. Clensy was as improvident and reckless with money as Adams, so it is possible that they had a pretty good time while the bulk of the money lasted. The only thing that can be recorded with certainty is, that they left Acapulco and made their way to Vera Cruz, and eventually arrived by steamer at Port-au-Prince, Hayti.
“It’s no use you grousing, Myster Clensy,” said Adams.
“I suppose not,” replied the young Englishman as he gazed mournfully on the dark faced population of the semi-barbarian city of the Black Republic, Port-au-Prince. “Reminds me of what I’ve read about ancient Babylon and the Assyrian cities,” said Clensy as he watched the swarthy Haytian chiefs and handsome mulatto women, clad in yellow and blue silken robes, as they shuffled along the stone pavements in their loose sandals. Many of the quaintly robed folk stood by the doorways of their verandahed weatherboard homes conversing, making a hushed kind of hubbub as they muttered and stared with large dark eyes at Clensy and Adams.
“What’s Babylony and Asyery ter do with it? It b— well reminds me of hell, and of being damned ’ard up, it do!” responded the unpoetical ex-sailor.
“What on earth shall we do? We’re dead broke till my remittance arrives again,” reiterated Clensy as he wiped his perspiring brow and smiled wearily as the pretty Haytian girl passed by and gave him a languishing glance.
“Don’t you worry, myster, the only thing ter do, is ter take up ter the buskin’ again, but I can’t play alone in this ’ell of a ’ole, I’ll p’raps get shot by one of these smut-faced devils.”
“Can’t play alone! What do you mean?” said Clensy.