Brandon of the Engineers

"You had better stop here; I won't be longer than I can help," he said.

"They'll make you a rather nice iced drink of Canary tinto."

"Just so," Jake replied. "Tinto's a thin, sour claret, isn't it? In New

York not long ago you could get iced buttermilk. Can't say I was fond of

it, but I reckon it's as exhilarating as the other stuff."

Dick left him with some misgivings and went about his business. It was

eight o'clock in the evening and the foundry would be closed, but he knew

where the manager lived and went to his house, which was situated in the

older part of the city. He had not taken Jake because he had to pass some

of the less reputable cafés and gambling dens and thought it undesirable

that the lad should know where they were. The foundry manager was not at

home, but a languishing young woman with a thickly powdered face, who

called her mother before she conferred with Dick, told him where Don

Tomas had gone, and Dick set off again in search of the café she named.

A half moon hung low in the clear sky, but, for the most part, its light

only reached a short distance down the white and yellow fronts of the

flat-topped houses. These got light and air from the central courtyard,

or patio, and the outer walls were only pierced by one or two very narrow

windows at some height from the ground. The openings were marked here and

there by a faint glow from within, which was often broken by a shadowy

female form leaning against the bars and speaking softly to another

figure on the pavement below.

There were few street lamps, and in places the houses crowded in upon the

narrow strip of gloom through which Dick picked his way with echoing

steps. Most of the citizens were in the plaza, and the streets were quiet

except for the measured beat of the surf and the distant music of the

band. A smell of rancid oil and garlic, mingled with the strong perfumes

Spanish women use, hung about the buildings, but now and then a puff of

cooler air flowed through a dark opening and brought with it the keen

freshness of the sea. Once the melancholy note of a guitar came down from

a roof and somebody began to sing in a voice that quivered with fantastic

tremolos.

Dick went carefully, keeping as far as possible away from the walls. In

Santa Brigida, all white men were supposed to be rich, and the honesty of

the darker part of its mixed population was open to doubt. Besides, he

had learned that the fair-skinned Northerners were disliked. They brought

money, which was needed, into the country, but they also brought machines

and business methods that threatened to disturb the tranquillity the

Latin half-breed enjoyed. The latter must be beaten in industrial strife

and, exchanging independence for higher wages, become subject to a more

vigorous, mercantile race. The half-breeds seemed to know this, and

regarded the foreigners with jealous eyes. For all that, Dick carried no

weapons. A pistol large enough to be of use was an awkward thing to hide,

and he agreed with Bethune that to wear it ostentatiously was more likely

to provoke than avoid attack.