SOUTH ATLANTIC LEGACY

Ashburton Guardian, Volume 60, Issue 250, 30 July 1940, Page 7

SOUTH ATLANTIC LEGACY

By SYDNEY PARKMAN.

CHAPTER I. MAN FROM THE SiEA. “El Capitan Salter,” the clerk announced, and stood aside from the doorway to allow the big man to enter the manager’s office. Senor Miguel Aldosora rose from his chair and advanced towards his client with outstretched hand. “Ah, Captain, you come in a happy hour!” he exclaimed in very good English. “it is how long—five, six months —since i have the pleasure to see you?” “It’s all of that,” the burly captain agreed, subsiding into a chair and depositing a stout pigskin bag carefully on the floor beside him. “1 must be the answer to the bank manager’s prayer. No overdraft, a steady current account, and 1 never show up without putting a few pesos of commission into youi pocket. Isn’t that so?” The other laughed and he resumed his seat at the desk. “It is true,” he admitted. “If all our clients were like you, banking would be a pleasant business. But 1 forget my manners. A little drink, Captain, and a cigar? One must mark the happy occasion of your visit. Captain Salter shook his head firmly. “A cigar, yes,” he agreed. “But you’ll have to count me out on the drink. There was a time when 1 wouldn’t have said ‘No,’ but I’m getting too old to start hitting the bottle at ten o’clock in the morning. Ho helped himself to a long, thin Cuban cigar from the proffered box, bit off the end with strong teeth. “The time comes when we’ve all got to shut down on careless habits if we want to stay healthy.” . . The manager surveyed his visitor s broad shoulders and the clear, ruddy complexion of his bearded face with a smile. ‘ . “One would .not suspect you of illhealth, Captain,” he remarked dryly. “Oh, I’m fit enough now,” tho other agreed. “But I’m getting on, and it doesn’t do to play hanky-panky after you’ve passed the (30 mark. It’s time to settle down to a regular life then—and it’s partly about that that I’ve come to see you. I’m thinking of buying a small sugar estate and becoming a proper ‘colono.’ Just as a sort of hobby, you know.” The manager leaned back in Ins chair. “At Carbonaras?” he asked “Just in the hills above,” the captain answered. “There’s a two hundred acre lot going that’ll be quite enough to keep me busy. I wouldn t bother about it, but now that they’re driving that) main road through, things are going- to wake up a bit out there. 1 shouldn’t wonder if. land became quite valuable between the sierras and the coast.

The manager nodded. “It is going to make a very big difference—and not the least to us here,” he said. “As I see it, in a few years time Antilla will be as big as Cienfuegas—the Havana of the east. But I am delighted to hear that you are buying a stake in the country, and I will he happy to give you any assistance in the matter. As you know, ours is a ‘sugar bank,’ and we are in contact with all the brokers and shippers.” “Yes, I know,” replied the Captain. “But that side of it won’t come up for quite a while. The estate has been allowed to go out of production. The first thing to do is to buy it—and that s what I’ve come about. I want to establish a credit to meet the purchase price. And hero it is,” he concluded. He reached down and lifting the leather bag from the floor, deposited it on the desk. It appeared to be sur : prisingly heavy, judging from the manner in which he lifted it and the solid sound of its impact on the mahogany surface of the desk. The manager leaned forward and pressed a bell-push on the side of the desk, and a few seconds later a clerk appeared in the doorway. Senor Aldosora addressed him in rapid Spanish, and he came forward and lifting the bag from the desk with an obvious effort, carried it out with him. “You have a check of the amount, Captain?” the manager asked, as the door closed behind him.

Captain Salter nodded. > “Hound about a thousand, reckoned in English,” he said. “I don’t know what the current price is exactly, hut it ought to work out as somewhere near nine thousand pesos. I’m paying just over five thousand for the estate, and then there’ll be a good deal to shell out in the way of new machinery and so on.” “Just so,” the , manager agreed. “You are not getting this estate cheaply, Captain.” “No; it’s a bit stiff as a matter of fact,” the other admitted. “But I can’t beat them down any lower. Still, I’m hoping that the land will rise in value when they’ve finished the road — and anyway, I can afford to pay for my hobbies.” There followed a brief pause while they pulled at their cigars. Then the manager glanced across at his client speculatively. “Has it ever occurred to you that it would be worth your while to take out naturalisation papers, Captain?” he asked. “You have been living in the country for over five years now. It would not commit you to anything—aside from the taxes which you would have to pay anyway—and now that you are purchasing this estate, it might be worth thinking about.” “1 MIGHT GET PLUGGED.” The Captain shook his head slowly. “No, guess not,” he said. “I’ve gone over it, and I’ve come to the conclusion that it isn’t worth it. I intend to stay hero because it suits me as well as anywhere. That last trip I made to England cured me of any wish to live in that beastly climate. But at the same time, British citizenship gives me a definite pull here. It puts me outside local politics, for one thing, and if anyone tries to do me dirt, the British Consul will want to know why. If a large-scale revolution came along, for instance, I’d bo left alone because I am a Britisher; but if I became a Cuban citizen, the chances are that I’d bo forced to side one way or the other, and if it happened to be the wrong side,

Adventures in Tropical Seas.

you -again soon?”

(Copyright).

I might get plugged for my pains.” “But, my dear Captain!” the manager protested in a pained voice. “Tho country has settled down now. TV ho talks of revolution?”

“Quite a lot of folk—and they always will!” the Captain retorted. “It’s in tho blood, I guess-. In another five years they’ll have got over the last rumpus and they’ll be ripe for the next. But anyway, you can see that I don’t stand to gain much and I might lose a whole lot. So I reckon I’ll stop as I am.” The manager shrugged. “There is reason in what you say,” he admitted. “And of course you are not married.” “You’re chinking of death duties now, aren’t you?” the Captain asked shrewdly. “But that’s not going to worry me. They can only claim on property in the country, and they won’t get very fat on that. Anyway, I’ll be out of it by then, and I’ve got a brother who’ll fight ’em for what he can get— —” He broke off, for at that moment the clerk re-entered the room and handed a slip of paper to the manager. Tho latter glanced at it and then looked across at the captain.

“Nine thousand, two hundred and thirty-eight pesos, thirty-five cents, Captain,” ho announced, as the dooi closed again. “A little better than you thought, eh?” The Captain nodded carelessly, and rose from his chair.

“Well, that’s settled,” he said. He glanced at his watch. “I might as well be getting along. That deposit of mine won’t want any clearing, so 1 can draw on the account as soon as I like, eh?” The manager had risen too, and at this he smiled.

“It clears itself,” he 'said. “There is still nothing to beat it. But speaking of that, Captain, I wish you would lot mo know when you are coming on these little visits of yours. I could then send a couple of men to meet your boat and escort you here. W© have our share of bad, characters in Antilla, and if it once became known that you were., carrying ” The captain cut him short with an impatient laugh. “'Don’t worry about mo!” he said. “J may be getting a back-number, but I can still look after myself. It’s only a couple of hundred yards from the landing-stage, and if anyone tries to get tough with me in broad daylight, they’re in for a rough passage. Besides, how am I going to let yon know? 1 don’t know myself to within an hour or two. It just depends on the strength of tho Tirades whether I make a quickpassage or not. Nobody knows me here, and tho bag looks like any other bag doesn’t it?”

“Perhaps so,” the manager agreed. “But all the same, I don’t like it. I shall be glad when the long-distance bus service gets as far as Carbonaras, The dopt is just across the plaza, and you will onlv havie- a few yards to walk.” ‘ '

“But I won’t come by road even then,” the captain told him with a grin “For one thing, I don’t come direct from Carbonaras anyway. But even if I did, the sea passage would he safer. Nobody can follow me and knock me on the bead that way. So you can take it from me that as long as I bring these little packets of stuff in to Antila, I’ll bo sailing ’em in!” The manager shrugged and sighed. “Just as you say, Captain,” he said resignedly. “Well, I will wish you a happy journey 7 and a prosperoxis outcome to your business. I will be seeing

“As soon as I’m through with- this legal nonsense,” the captain told him, shaking hands. “That’ll take about a week, I expect. Adios!” The manager 'accompanied him to the door of the office. Then he went to his seat at the desk again. He sat for some little while, staring down at the slip of paper with- tho pencilled figures upon it. “A strange man!” he- muttered to himself at last. “I wonder how he came by it- —and where lie keeps it.” Ho crumpled the piece of paper and dropped it into the waste paper basket at his side. “Not in Carbonaras, evident-, lyl” h© concluded, -and turned his attention to the pile of documents on his desk again.

Oddly enough, he was not the only person in the building who was thinking of his labs client at that moment.

Outside; 1 at the teller’s counter, a lean, yellow-faced man in overalls had been chatting idly with the junior cashier. He had broken off in what lie had been saving to follow the captain’s burly figure into the street with his eyes, and had then, turned to the cashier with a curious puzzled expression on his face.

“Who was that, Juan?” he- asked, nodding tow'ards the entrance and speaking in Spanish.

The cashier —a spruce young man with elaborately smoothed and oiled hair —looked mysterious. “All, that is quite- a question, amigo,” he said. “I know his name —-but no one- knows much more about him. He is a certain Captain Salter.” The other man’s eyes brightened with recollection, and he brought his hand down with a slap on tho counter. “Salter it is!” he exclaimed in English. “Bully Salter. Well, what d’you know about that!”

“You know him?” the cashier asked interestedly 7. “Know him?” the other echoed “Why we were shipmates at one time. And a pretty 7 ' lively time it was, too ! But you don’t mean to say he lives in these- parts?” “He lives at a little place along the coast about eighty kilometres to- the eastward. Carbonaras, it is called.”

“Does he?” the yellow-faced man said.

“What’s he doing there? He’s not a colono, is he?” The cashier pursed his lips and shook his head. “No,” he said. “And nor would I be a- colono if I had his resources. But you will excuse me, amigo, if I say no more about him. These matters are confidential, you will understand.” His" friend stared at him for a moment in silence, and then he nodded slowly. “Why, of course,” he -agreed softly. “I wouldn’t want you to get into trouble' that way, Juan. Still, it’s interesting to hear that my old shipmate is doing well. Very interesting!”

(To be continued)