CHAPTER XII
LISTER OFFERS SATISFACTION
Desmond's informant had, as it happened, been quite warranted in mentioning that Lister's proceedings had aroused the interest of the English colony in Las Palmas. He provided those who belonged to it with something to talk about as they lounged on the hotel verandas, which was a cause for gratification, since a good many of them had no more profitable occupation. That dusty city has, like others in the south, distractions to offer the idler with liberal views, though a certain proportion of them are of distinctly doubtful character. There are also in it gentlemen of easy morality who are willing to act as cicerone to the stranger with means, that is, provided he possesses a generous disposition. Spaniards of the old régime call them the Sin Verguenza, "men without shame," and there are one or two coarsely forceful Anglo-Saxon terms that might be aptly applied to them. It is, unfortunately, a fact that there are Englishmen among them.
Lister, who was young, and had never imposed much restraint upon himself, profited by the opportunities they provided him. He had the command of more money than was, perhaps, desirable, and for several weeks the pace he made was hot. He was naturally preyed upon and victimized, though, after all, the latter happened less frequently than those who watched his proceedings supposed. The lad was careless and generous, but there was a certain shrewdness in him as well as a vein of cold British stubbornness which made him a trifle difficult to handle when once his dislike was aroused. Indeed, one or two of his acquaintances fancied he had not gone so very deep in the mire, after all. How much Mrs. Ratcliffe knew about his doings did not appear. One desires to be charitable, and since Major Chillingham had gone back to England, it is possible, though far from likely, that she had not heard of them at all. In any case, she took him up, and was gracious to him in a motherly fashion, and there was suddenly a change in him.
Lister henceforward spent his evenings at the hotel, generally near the piano when Ada Ratcliffe sang. He also planned excursions for her and her mother to little palm-shrouded villages among the volcanic hills, and, since there was nobody who understood exactly how Miss Ratcliffe stood with regard to the man who had gone to Africa, the onlookers chuckled, and said that the girl's mother was a clever woman. She said that Lister was a very likable young man, who had no mother of his own, which was always a misfortune, and that it was almost a duty to look after him.
It was, in any case, one she discharged efficiently, and for a time his former companions had very little of Lister's company. Several of them were also sorry he had, apparently, as the result of their persistent efforts to undermine her authority, flung off the restraints Mrs. Ratcliffe had gradually imposed on him when at last he spent a night with them again.
They had reasonable cause for dissatisfaction when they sat in a certain caffee which stood near the cathedral. The latter fact has a significance for those acquainted with Spanish cities, but, after all, the Church is needed most where sinners abound. The caffee had wide unglazed windows, and clear moonlight streamed down into the hot, unsavory street, which under that pure radiance looked for once curiously clean and white. Tall limewashed walls rose above it, and, for the flat roofs lay beneath their crests, cut against the strip of velvety indigo, while a little cool breeze swept between them with a welcome freshness. There was no gleam of light behind any of the green lattices that broke their flat monotony and, save for the deep rumble of the surf, the city was very still. Once a measured tramp of feet rang across the flat roofs and indicated that two of the armed civiles were patroling a neighboring calle where the principal shops stand, but their business would not take them near the caffee. It is, in fact, not often that authority obtrudes itself unadvisedly into certain parts of most Spanish towns.
The moonlight also streamed into the caffee where a big lamp in which the oil was running low burned dimly. The table beneath it was stained with cheap red wine, and a good many bottles stood upon it among a litter of Spanish cards. Four men sat about it, and two more lounged upon the settee which ran along the discolored wall. The place was filled with tobacco smoke and the sickly odor of anisado, which was, however, no great disadvantage, since the natural reek of a Spanish Alsatia is more unpleasant still. The men had been there four or five hours when Lister flung down a card and noisily pushed back his chair. His face was a trifle flushed, and his hands were not quite steady, but his half-closed eyes were, as one or two of the others noticed, almost unpleasantly calm. There was a pile of silver at his side on the table, for he had, as the red-faced English skipper opposite him had once or twice observed, been favored with an astonishing run of luck. It is, however, possible that the skipper did not go quite far enough. Lister had certainly been fortunate, but he had also a nice judgment in such matters, and his nerve was unusually good. He looked round at his companions with a little dry smile.
"You should have left me alone," he said. "I didn't want to come here, but when you insisted I did it to oblige you. As you pointed out, considering what I took out of some of you on another occasion, it seemed the fair thing. Now I hope you're satisfied."
He indicated the pile of silver with a little wave of his hand, and the others, among whom there were two Englishmen beside the skipper, waited in some astonishment, with very little sign of content in their faces, until he went on again.
"Well," he said, "I'm still willing to do the fair thing, though, while I don't wish to be unduly personal, that is a point which has evidently not caused one or two of you any undue anxiety. You can explain that, Walters, to the Spanish gentlemen, though I don't altogether confine my remarks to them."