He thought of the wary Spaniard’s visit to Kennedy’s home, and of his offer to buy the grapefruit orchard; thought too of the prosperous-looking American he had seen at the foot of the Porte Zelaya dock.
“Wonder if I will ever see that short, stout American again?” he thought. “They say he left yesterday morning.”
The answer to this last question, though he could not know it yet, was a decided yes. He was to meet that mysterious American again under very unusual circumstances. A strange break of fate had predestined them to be thrown together for many days.
As he followed the unerring guidance of the Carib Indian through the maze of fallen trees and destroyed banana plants back toward the port, his thoughts were gloomy indeed. The glory of the tropical moonlight seemed to mock him. Every black mass of twisted banana plants seemed a funeral pile on which his dead hopes were to be burned.
“Fate treats one strangely at times,” he told himself.
So it seemed. He had been endeavoring to assist a very worthy, aged and needy man, one who had given all his life to others. This man had fought for his country, fearlessly at the front of his command, yet he refused the honor of being called “Captain.”
The World War was not the only one in which he had fought. Time and again the need of his humble fellow countrymen, the black Caribs whose fathers and mothers had been Indians and negro slaves, had called him to his duty, and he had gone.
On one occasion, during the terrible yellow-fever plague, he had toiled days without end, burying the Carib dead and caring for the stricken ones until the hand of the dread enemy was stayed.
“Not a native in all Stann Creek district but knows and loves him,” Johnny told himself. “And now, in his old age, when he truly needs a lift and we try to help him, see how things come out! We are blocked by a scheming Spaniard who never fought for any country, nor for the good of any person beside himself. He probably never had an unselfish thought in the whole of his life.”
His thoughts were gloomy enough. But, after climbing over many obstructions and wading numerous small, swollen streams, he began to reason with himself. What was this “Fate” he was always thinking of? Was it the great Creator, or was it some other being?