The whistle of the steamer saluted three times—twice short and once long—the sun which rose over the deep green mountains of Costa Rica. The signal was answered in due time. A small tug put off from the long iron pier. There was a launch at the end of its tow line, a big, flat scow of a lighter. It came out across the smooth mother-of-pearl stretch of water, jerking and bobbing over the great Pacific swells. The tug shot by the steamer, the launch threw loose the tow line, and as it came alongside the forward cargo hatchway, a lanchero pitched another rope up to the boatswain.
There followed delay. There must of necessity follow delay when the crews and captains of launches are West Coast natives—Mexican stevedores at the very best—and most of the sailors on the steamers the same. The first-officer, down on the main deck, gave orders, there was a creaking of hawsers on the strain, the rattle and squeal of blocks and tackle, and the rumble of moving freight in one of the forward cargo-spaces. The captain, immaculate in ducks, came out from his cabin. He went to the rail and looked over at La Libertad, where the white and red of its long, low houses showed clear in the daybreak among the glistening palms. Then he looked down. There were eight or ten lancheros in the lighter helping to confuse the very simple process of making her fast, or perched upon the gunwale observing with the vague placidity of their kind.
The captain had no opinion of Central American natives of any sort, much less of lancheros. He considered these ones with rather more than usual disgust.
“What’s the matter with them fellows in that launch, Marsden,” he inquired of the first-officer.
Marsden was peering down into the black hole of the hold. He drew away and looked up to the rail of the hurricane deck. “Played out, sir,” he told him; “they were loading the San Benito until she put out last night at eleven.”
The captain had no sympathy for them on that, or any other score. His eye was without mercy, as he took stock of them again. “Hullo—one of them is white,” he said. It was meant, as before, for the first-officer, but it was entirely audible to the lancheros.
The first-officer looked over into the launch, and the man who was white looked up at him. Then the first-officer turned away. “Yes, sir,” he said.
He walked to the hatchway edge. “Quartermaster,” he called. A voice from the hold answered him. “Send up those boxes of nails first,” he ordered.
There followed a banging in the cargo-space, the boatswain’s whistle began its shrill little calls, which would keep up all day, a donkey engine puffed, and a windlass rattled in the bowels of the ship; the big hook on the end of its rope swung down the hatchway, and presently a net-sling full of boxes was hoisted and deposited on the main deck.
“T. S. & Co., over X, one—Garcia, three times—Y in a diamond, two times—J. S. & Co., over X, four.” The first-officer marked the boxes with his chalk as he called their address and number, the checky for the port authorities and the freight-clerk for the ship kept tally and record in their own books; the net drew taut again at the boatswain’s whistle, and the first load of cargo swung overside and was lowered into the launch.