“That is very thoughtful of you, but the stewardess had to come back and report for duty.”
“An uncommonly pretty young woman,” was the gruff comment, “and as good as she looks, from all accounts. I can’t blame you for taking notice. Don’t lose your head, though. Going to sea is a dog’s life for a man that’s fool enough to get married.”
“Exactly what I used to say,” replied Cary, “but a man has been known to change his mind.”
He drifted along the promenade deck and chatted with a passenger or two. This failed to interest him. In the lee of the cargo sheds, where the ship was moored, the air was hot and heavy. He went to his room and tried to read. A cabin steward came in with the briar pipe, sent by Teresa who had thoroughly cleaned and boiled it. He lighted the pipe and went on deck again, roaming to and fro alone.
It occurred to him to walk into Cartagena, as far as the nearest shops, and buy some picture postcards to send to his mother in New Hampshire. He had noticed them in the windows, attractively colored, giving impressions really vivid of the charm and antiquity of the place. They would be treasured at home, probably passed around at a meeting of the missionary society or the Ladies’ Aid.
It was an excuse to work off his restless humor. An absurd anticlimax, in a way, to be tied to the routine of a fruit steamer, to be separated from one’s sweetheart because, in the role of a stewardess, she had to wait upon a lot of fussy, pampered women. Richard Cary swore under his breath. Dreams of adventure? The sense of tingling expectancy? Bonds not easy to break constrained him, habits of discipline and environment. He was torn two ways. It was a conflict between the two Richard Carys.
After finding the postal cards and mailing them, he walked through one quaint, shadowed street after another. Certain buildings he felt drawn to find, the House of the Holy Inquisition, the towered cathedral, which was so bold a landmark from seaward, the cloistered convents whose nuns had fled inland whenever the topsails of the buccaneers had gleamed off the Boca Grande or the Boca Chica.
He was passing a café when he noticed, with a casual glance, a military officer seated just inside the iron grillwork of a long window. The officer waved a hand and called out a courteous invitation. Cary recognized him as Colonel Fajardo, the Comandante of the Port. This was rather surprising. Affability was unexpected. Richard Cary was intrigued. The chief engineer had taken pains to warn him against this gentleman as both truculent and dangerous where a woman was involved. Apparently Colonel Fajardo wished to dispel such an impression. He pointed at the tiny cognac glass in front of him and suavely suggested:
“Will you give me the pleasure? You are enjoying the lovely night, and alone? How unfortunate!”
“Thank you. I can tarry a few minutes,” replied Cary. He entered the door and took a chair facing the Colombian colonel. The café was more than respectable. It was what one might have called a resort of fashion. A perfectly safe place in which to sit with Colonel Fajardo and sip a tiny glass of cognac. He was sober enough, reflected Cary. Haggard and a little the worse for wear, but not in the least quarrelsome. Jimmy, the bartender of the Tarragona, must have been unduly excited. No prospect of melodrama in such a situation as this.