Part 39

"When the snakes and bats and vampires get you," he warned, "you'll wish you were back among the sharks!"

But Roddy did not hear him. As though warding off a blow he threw his hands across his face and dropped heavily.

"Heave!" cried Peter.

The two men sank their heels in the broken rubbish and dragged on the rope until they could lay violent hands on Roddy's shoulders. With unnecessary roughness they pulled him out of the opening and let him fall.

When Roddy came to he rose sheepishly.

"We'll have to postpone that expedition," he said, "until we can count on better ventilation. Meanwhile, if any gentleman wants to say 'I told you so,' I'll listen to him."

They replaced the slabs over the mouth of the tunnel, but left wide openings through which the air and sunlight could circulate, and, after concealing these openings with vines, returned to Roddy's house. There they found Vicenti awaiting them. He was the bearer of important news. The adherents of Colonel Vega, he told them, were assembling in force near Porto Cabello, and it was well understood by the government that at any moment Vega might join them and proclaim his revolution. That he was not already under arrest was due to the fact that the government wished to seize not only the leader, but all of those who were planning to leave the city with him. The home of Vega was surrounded, and he himself, in his walks abroad, closely guarded. That he would be able to escape seemed all but impossible.

"At the same time," continued Vicenti, "our own party is in readiness. If Vega reaches his followers and starts on his march to the capital we will start an uprising here in favor of Rojas. If we could free Rojas and show him to the people, nothing could save Alvarez. Alvarez knows that as well as ourselves. But without artillery it is impossible to subdue the fortress of San Carlos. We can take this city; we can seize the barracks, the custom-house, but not San Carlos. There also is this danger; that Alvarez, knowing without Rojas our party would fall to pieces, may at the first outbreak order him to be shot."

Roddy asked Vicenti, as the physician of Rojas, if he thought Rojas were strong enough to lead a campaign.

"He is not," declared Vicenti, "but we would not ask it of him. Let him only show himself and there will be no campaign. Even the government troops would desert to him. But," he added with a sigh, "why talk of the impossible! The troops that hold San Carlos are bound to Alvarez. He has placed there only those from his own plantation; he has paid them royally. And they have other reasons for fighting to the death. Since they have been stationed at Porto Cabello their conduct has been unspeakable. And the men of this town hate them as much as the women fear them. Their cruelty to the political prisoners is well known, and they understand that if an uprising started here where Rojas has lived, where he is dearly loved, they need expect no mercy. They will fight, not to protect San Carlos, but for their lives."

Vicenti spoke with such genuine feeling that had Roddy felt free to do so he would have told him of the plan to rescue Rojas. But both Peter and McKildrick had warned him that until the last moment no one, save themselves, must learn the secret of the tunnel.

So, while they thanked Vicenti for his confidences, they separated for the night without having made him any return in kind.

The next morning, Sam Caldwell, under the guidance of McKildrick, paid an official visit to the light-house on which the men of the F. C. C. were then at work. When his tour of inspection was finished he returned to the wheel-house of the tug that had brought him across the harbor, and sent for Roddy. Roddy appeared before him in his working-clothes. They consisted of very few garments, and those were entirely concealed by the harbor mud. Caldwell, in cool, clean duck and a flamboyant Panama hat, signified with a grin that he enjoyed the contrast. He did not like Roddy, and Roddy treated him with open insolence. They were nearly of the same age and for years had known each other, but they had always been at war. As son of the president of the company, every chance had been given Roddy to advance his own interests. And it was not so much that he had failed to be of service to the company, as that he had failed to push himself forward, that caused Caldwell to regard him with easy contempt.

On his side, Roddy considered Caldwell the bribe-giver and keeper of the corruption fund for the company, and, as such, beneath his royal notice. It therefore followed that in his present position of brief authority over Roddy, Caldwell found a certain enjoyment. This he concealed beneath the busy air of a man of affairs.

"I have a cable here from your father, Roddy," he began briskly. "Translated, the part that refers to you reads, 'Tell Forrester take orders from you or leave service company. If refuses, furnish return passage, month's wages.'"

After a pause, Roddy said: "I take it that is in answer to a cable from you."

"Exactly," assented Caldwell. "I informed your father you were insubordinate to my authority, and that I had been reliably informed you were hostile to our interests. What you do as an individual doesn't count for much, but as the son of your father, apparently down here at least, it does. Why you made that play at me last night I don't know, and I haven't time to find out. I am not here to teach you manners. But when you butt in and interfere with the business of the company I must take notice. You've either got to stop working against us, or go home. Which do you want to do? And before you answer," Caldwell added, "you ought to know that, as it is, you don't stand very high at headquarters. When your father got word you'd been fighting Vega, our friend, in defense of Alvarez, the man that's robbing us, that's giving us all this trouble, he was naturally pretty hot. He said to me: 'Roddy isn't down there to mix up in politics, but if he does, he must mix up on our side. I can't take money from the company to support my son, or any one else, who is against it.' That's what your father said to me. Now, as I understand it, although it is none of my business, you are dependent on him, and I advise----"

"As you say," interrupted Roddy, "it's none of your business. The other proposition," he went on, "that I can't take money from the company and work against it, is fair enough. What you call my work against it was begun before I knew it was in any way opposed to the company's interests. Now that I do know, I quite agree that either I must give up my outside job or quit working for you." Roddy reached to the shoulder of his flannel shirt, and meditatively began to unroll his damp and mud-soaked sleeve. "I guess I'll quit now!" he said.

The answer was not the one Caldwell expected or desired. As an employee of the company Roddy was not important, but what he was doing as an individual, which had so greatly excited Vega, was apparently of much importance. And what it might be Sam Caldwell was anxious to discover. He had enjoyed his moment of triumph and now adopted a tone more conciliatory.

"There's no use getting hot about it," he urged. "Better think it over."

Roddy nodded, and started to leave the wheel-house.

"Have thought it over," he said.

As Caldwell saw it, Roddy was acting from pique and in the belief that his father would continue to supply him with funds. This Caldwell knew was not the intention of Mr. Forrester. He had directed Caldwell to inform Roddy that if he deliberately opposed him he must not only seek work elsewhere, but that he did not think he should continue to ask his father for support. Caldwell proceeded to make this quite plain to Roddy, but, except that the color in his face deepened and that his jaw set more firmly, Roddy made no sign.

"Very well, then," concluded Caldwell, "you leave me no other course than to carry out your father's direction. I'll give you a month's wages and pay your passage-money home."

"I'm not going home," returned Roddy, "and I don't want any money I haven't worked for. The company isn't discharging me," he added with a grin, "as it would a cook. I am discharging the company."

"I warn you your father won't stand for it," protested Caldwell.

Roddy turned back, and in a serious tone, and emphasizing his words with a pointed forefinger, spoke earnestly.

"Sam," he said, "I give you my word, father is in wrong. You are in wrong. You're both backing the wrong stable. When this row starts your man Vega won't run one, two, three."