"On the surface, the reason isn't very obvious. Alvarez is president now, but mayn't be very long. It depends on whether he or his rival, Galdar, gets his blow in first. I reckon the chances are against Alvarez if Galdar puts up a fight, but the latter's not ready yet and Alvarez means to arm his troops before the fellow knows. I imagine about half the citizens are plotters and spies."
"Alvarez has been honest so far. I suppose if he wins he'll pay?"
"That's so," said Adam dryly. "If he goes down, we get nothing. Although I don't know much about his ancestors and suspect that one was an Indian, Alvarez is white, but the other fellow's a blamed poor sample of the half-breed nigger. Well, when Alvarez found things were going wrong, he sent for me."
"Ah," said Kit in a thoughtful voice, "I begin to understand."
He did understand, although he would not have done so when he met his uncle first. He had known Adam play the part of a merciless creditor, and thought few men could beat him at a bargain, but he kept his bargain when it was made, and now and then risked his money on lost causes. It looked as if he had inherited something from Christopher the Jacobite.
"You have known Alvarez long, haven't you?" Kit resumed.
"When I met him first, he was a customs officer with some perquisites and a salary that paid for liquor and tobacco. Vanhuyten and I ran the old Mercedes then, and Van made a mistake that put us at the fellow's mercy. There was a good case for confiscating the schooner, which would have given Alvarez a lift while we went broke. In fact, the night of the crisis, I dropped Van's pistol overboard; he'd got malaria badly and was feeling desperate. Well, all we had given Alvarez didn't cover that kind of a job, but he'd promised to stand our friend and kept his word like a gentleman. Guess it needed some nerve and judgment to work things the way he did, and when we stole out to sea at daybreak past the port guard, I knew there was one man in the rotten country I could trust with my life. Now he's in a tight place, he knows he can trust me."
Adam got up and crossing the deck leaned against the rails. In the distance, where the glitter faded, there was a long gray smear that seemed to float like a smoke-trail above the water. Higher up, a vague blue line ran across the dazzling sky. The first was a fringe of mangrove forest; the other lofty mountains. A minute or two later, the fat, brown-faced captain came down from his bridge.
"Looks like the Punta; we've hit her first time," he remarked. "In about an hour I ought to get my marks. When d'you want her taken in?"
"Soon as it's dark," Adam replied. "You'll have to trust your lead and compass. Can't have you whistling for a pilot, and I'd sooner you put out your lights."