Long Odds. Bindloss Harold
of a little flat-topped house which bore a legend outside announcing that it was a caffee. A full moon hung above the city and flooded half the little square round which the building rose with silvery light. The summit of the white walls cut sharply against the cloudless blue, and the land breeze flowed in through a low archway heavy with heat and smells. Now and then the roar of the Atlantic surf swelled in volume and rolled across the roofs in a deep-toned rumbling. Lister, however, naturally noticed very little of this.
He lay in a Madeira chair near a little table upon which stood several flasks of wine and glasses, as well as a bundle of cigarettes. A lamp hung above him, and his light white clothing displayed the fleshiness of his big, loosely-hung frame. His face was a trifle flushed, and there was a suggestive gleam in his eyes when he glanced towards the unglazed square of lighted window behind which a comely damsel of somewhat dusky skin was singing to a mandolin, but the occasional bursts of hoarse laughter made it evident that the lady had other companions, and there was then a little but rather painful punctured wound in one of Lister's hands. She had made it that afternoon with a slender silver-headed strip of steel which she wore in her dusky hair, and Lister could take a hint when it was plain enough.
As it happened, a partial acquaintance with one or two Latin languages had been drilled into him in preparation for a certain branch of his country's service to which prejudiced persons had eventually denied him admission, and he had afterwards acquired sundry scraps of Portuguese in Madeiran wine-shops. As the result of this, his companions understood part, at least, of what he said. Two of them who had very yellow hands and somewhat crisp black hair were shaking dice upon the table, while a third lay quietly in a basket lounge watching the Englishman with keen dark eyes. The latter threw a piece of paper money down on the table.
"It's against me," he said. "I'll double on the same odds you don't shake as high again. Pass your friend the wine, Dom Domingo."
The quiet man made this a trifle plainer, and thrust the wine flask across the table, but Lister did not notice that one of the others looked at him as if for permission or instructions before he flung the dice back into the box.
"One who knows the game would not give quite such odds," he said in passable French. "It is the cards you play on board the steamer?"
"No," said Lister, who had consumed a good deal of wine, "not often. I wish we did. It would pass the time while we lie waiting off your blazing beaches."
"Ah," said the little man, "you wait for somebody, then?"
Lister's little start was quite perceptible, but he grinned. "You can't go inland without taking somebody who knows the way. I think I told you we were going up country to kill big game."
"But certainly!" and the other spread out his hands. "This is, however, not the season when one usually sets out on such a journey. It would be wiser to make it in a month or two. For good heads you must also go inland a long way. You start from – ?"
"The Bahia Santiago," but Lister recollected next moment, and looked at his companion truculently with half-closed eyes. "It seems to me you have a good many questions to ask. Besides, you stop the game."
The little man waved his hand deprecatingly, and answered one of the others' inquiring glance with a just perceptible motion of his head.
"Your pardon, señor," he said. "It was good advice I gave you about the odds."
He rose and slowly sauntered across the patio, but Lister did not notice that he stopped in the black shadow of the archway. Neither did the other men, one of whom shook the dice again.
"Ah!" he said. "The luck is once more against you."
Lister poured himself out another glass of wine. He was feeling a trifle drowsy, and the patio was very hot, but he wished to rouse himself enough to watch one of the player's thick-fingered yellow hands. Then flinging down another piece of paper money he reached out and took the box himself. His lips had shut tight, and though his face had flushed more deeply his eyes were keen.
They threw twice more while the other man, who appeared to relinquish his share in the proceedings, good-humoredly looked on, and then Lister leaned forward suddenly and seized the yellow hand. The box fell with a clatter, and Lister clutched one of the little spotted cubes that rolled out upon the table. Then the player's companion swung out his right arm with a flick of his sleeve, and Lister caught the gleam of steel. Loosely hung and a trifle slouching as he was, he was big, and had, at least, no lack of animal courage. He said nothing, but he flung the man whose hand he held backward upon the table, which overturned in front of his companion, and snatching a heavy wine flask from one close by, swung it by the neck.
The man with the knife was a moment recovering his footing, and then he moved forward, half-crouching, with a cat-like gait. The veins rose swollen on Lister's forehead, but he stood still, and his big red hand tightened savagely on the neck of the heavy vessel, which held a quart or two. The tinkle of the mandolin had ceased abruptly, and for a few moments there was not a sound in the little patio. Then there was a sharp command, and the man with the knife slunk backward, as a figure moved quietly out of the shadow beneath the archway. It was the man who had questioned Lister, and he laid his hand upon the flask the latter held.
"With permission I will take it from you," he said. "It is, I think, convenient that you go back to your steamer."
Lister fancied that he was right, and when three or four men who had now come out from the lighted room made way for them he followed his companion out through the archway. The latter called to a man in dilapidated white uniform, and they proceeded together to where a boat was waiting. They put Lister on board her, and stood still a minute or two watching while a couple of negroes rowed him off to the Palestrina. Then one of them laughed.
"There are many fools in this world but one has perhaps no cause to pity them," he said. "It is as a rule their friends they bring to grief."
Twenty minutes later he called at Dom Clemente's residence, and was not exactly pleased when he was shown into the presence of Benicia Figuera.
"My father is on board the yacht. You have come about the Englishman you have been watching?" she said.
The man made a little deprecatory gesture. "It is not permissible to contradict the señorita."
Benicia laughed. "It would not be worth while, my friend. You will leave your message."
"It is a report for Dom Clemente," and again the man spread out his hands. One could have fancied he felt it necessary to excuse himself for such an answer.
"Then," said the girl, "it is, as I think you know, quite safe with me."
There was no smile in her eyes this time, and her companion thought rapidly. Then, after another gesture which expressed resignation, he spoke for some three or four minutes until the girl checked him with a sign.
"If Dom Clemente has any questions to ask he will send for you," she said. "If not, you must not trouble him about the matter. I think you understand?"
It was evident that the man did so, for he went out with a respectful gesture of comprehension, and then turned and shook a yellow fist at the door which closed behind him. He could foresee that to do as he was bidden might involve him in difficulties, but Benicia Figuera was something of a power in that country, and he knew it was seldom advisable to thwart her. She, as it happened, sat still thinking for a time, and as the result of it when Desmond's gig went ashore next morning a negro handed one of her crew a little note. That afternoon Desmond dressed himself with somewhat unusual care before he was rowed ashore, and on being ushered into a white house by a uniformed negro was not altogether astonished to find Benicia Figuera waiting for him alone in a big cool room. He had met her in Las Palmas, and she smiled at him graciously as she pointed to a little table where wine and cigarettes were laid out.
"They are at your disposal. Here one smokes at all times and everywhere," she said.
Desmond sat down some distance away from her, for as he said afterwards, she was astonishingly pretty as well as most artistically got up, and he was on his guard.
"I almost fancy it is advisable that I should keep my head just now, and it already promises to be sufficiently difficult," he said with a twinkle in his eyes. "Dom Clemente