“Very well. This also is granted. You may use my equipment. Ten cents a bunch in the field, a salvage price.”
There was a slight move at the door. Together they turned to look. There stood Diaz. His white face showed that he had heard much, understood all.
Don del Valle pointed a finger of accusation and scorn at him.
He vanished into the dark. His plotting was not at an end, however. He went directly to a long shed where many men, beachcombers, longshoremen, chicleros and banana gatherers, were sleeping. There he began to sow the seeds of a hasty revolution and a wild demonstration against the hated white men, which was destined once more to threaten disaster to Johnny Thompson’s plans.
Early that morning one might have found Johnny alone at the edge of the banana plantation. To one unaccustomed to Johnny’s ways, his actions might have seemed strange. Was he taking his daily dozen? Perhaps, but surely they were a queer dozen.
If you know Johnny at all you are aware of the fact that he is a skillful boxer. But down there in the tropics bare hands avail little. Johnny was not shadow boxing. The thing he was doing was quite different. He was keeping fit all the same.
A stout young mahogany tree had sprung up in the midst of the banana field. From a tough limb of this tree Johnny had suspended a large bunch of bananas. The top of the bunch was a little higher than Johnny’s shoulders, the tip a foot from the ground.
Seizing one of two machetes, great long bladed knives like swords, that lay on the ground, the boy began circling the swinging bunch of bananas as one might a mortal enemy. Brandishing his machete, he circled this imaginary enemy three times. Then, as if an opening had appeared, he made a sudden onslaught that sent green bananas thudding to earth and set the bunch spinning wildly.
Then he parried and thrust as an imaginary blade sang close to his head. Once more, with a lightning-like swing, he sprang in. This time he split a single banana from end to end and sent the severed halves soaring high.
He sprang back. No true blade could have inspired greater skill than the boy displayed before an empty world and without a real adversary.