Hope of a reply to his telegram faded with the hours. There was a steamer leaving the next day but one from San Francisco for Panama, and he booked his passage. This boat carried an efficient wireless, and after a couple of days out he could not refrain from sending a second message to Morrison, which remained unanswered like the first. Days of tedious, feverish waiting followed. But it was a relief to be going in the right direction at any rate, and at last he was landed again at the Canal entrance.
From the wharf he telephoned at once to Mrs. Leeman’s house and that lady herself answered him. Doctor Morrison and his daughter had gone. They had sailed a week ago, or about that—somewhere to South America, she thought. Valparaiso, perhaps, or Callao. Doctor Morrison was better, but had been much upset about something.
Lang had no difficulty in guessing what had upset him. He walked back to the landing stage, and gazed out across the sunny water, full of indecision.
“Do you know when there will be a steamer for Valparaiso?” he asked a khaki-clad Zone policeman.
“Well, there’s one right now,” returned the officer, in a strong Texas accent. “She’s out yander. But you’ll have to look right smart to get her, for she sails in about an hour.”
Lang owned no baggage but a single suit case, and he was aboard her and interviewing the purser within twenty minutes. Fortunately there were plenty of empty staterooms, and in less than two hours after entering Panama he was sailing out of it again. He had spent crowded moments there, but it seemed a place that he was destined to see little of.
Then followed a repetition of the wearisome and suspense-laden delay of the other two voyages. It was longer this time. The passengers grew excited over crossing the equator, but Lang condemned this geographical boundary. He did not care to go ashore at Callao or at Iquique or anywhere else. He tried to give his mind to the acquisition of Spanish, having borrowed a phrase book from the barber, but the words would not stick in his mind, and he could not bring himself to talk with the Spanish portion of the ship’s company.
From the equator the climate tapered off to cooler, to spring. Sometimes, far away to the east, he caught a glimpse of a white, sharp point in the sky—one of the snow peaks of the Andes piercing the clouds. It tormented him with the vision of that Chilean ice barrier, the glacier gate, which he might never see opened. Carroll would surely be first at that icy bar, but Lang promised himself to be not far behind, and at the thought of possible collision, of bloodshed, even, he had nothing but a thrill of fierce expectation that was almost pleasure. This time he would know how to defend himself, and attack in his turn.
Mist and rain veiled the wide harbor of Valparaiso as the steamer swung into it. Only by glimpses he saw the crescent of the lower town along the shore, and the shelving terraces on which the city climbs to the hills. Rain drove over the wet docks; tugs churned in the mist, blowing acrid coal smoke over the dripping, misty hulls of the moored ships.
The barelegged roto stevedores swarmed along the wharves as he was put ashore. There was a terrific uproar of wheels on the muddy cobbles, and a tumult of harsh Chilean Spanish when he emerged from the customs with his suit case, and fell among the cab drivers. He could not understand a single word of their fierce ejaculations, but he surrendered to what looked the best of them, and was driven away to a hotel whose name he did not know.