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The Caribs were busy loading her by means of the great lighters heaped full from the piles of fruit ranged upon the shore. On the sandy beach, with his back against a cocoanut-tree and the stubs of many cigars lying around him, Smith sat waiting, never relaxing his sharp gaze in the direction of the steamer. The incongruous yachtsman had concentrated his interest upon the innocent fruiter.
He said the fruiter was the Karlsefin, running generally to New Orleans, but took her last cargo to New York. Then I was sure my people were on board, although everybody told me that no passengers had landed. I didn't think they would land until after dark, for they might have been shy about it on account of seeing that yacht of mine hanging around.
Getting tired of this, and wanting to see something more of the world, I shipped in New York, early in December, on board the very prettiest craft I ever set eyes on, for a voyage to the West Indies. She was the hundred-ton schooner-yacht Mirage, and her owner had determined to try and make her pay him something during the winter by running her as a fruiter.
"I see a ship out there loading up with bananas," said Smith. "Any passengers come on her?" "That's the Karlsefin," said the consul. "She's a tramp fruiter made her last trip to New York, I believe. No; she brought no passengers. I saw her boat come ashore, and there was no one.
"Well, sir, we never got a sight of that fruit tub on the road. The ocean is a pretty big place; and I guess we took different paths across it. But we kept going toward this Anchuria, where the fruiter was bound for. "We struck the monkey coast one afternoon about four. There was a ratty-looking steamer off shore taking on bananas. The monkeys were loading her up with big barges.
"She am de Sea Gull, an' a mighty fin' boat, sah." "So I judge; what is she, fruiter, or private yacht?" "I reckon I don't just know," and he grinned. "Perhaps then you will inform me where we are bound I suppose you know that?" "No, sah; de captain he nebber done tol' me, sah, nothing 'bout his personal plans. All he done said wus fer me to hustle sum grub in yere."
Here they proceeded to a sailor's boarding house, where they were assured they would have no difficulty in getting a ship. Next day while hesitating over an offer they had from the captain of a fruiter to run down to the Grecian Islands where he intended to load with dry fruit and return to New York, a little English bark entered the bay.
But to-day he who proclaimed the Pajaro gained his honours. Ratona bent its ear to listen; and soon the deep-tongued blast grew louder and nearer, and at length Ratona saw above the line of palms on the low "point" the two black funnels of the fruiter slowly creeping toward the mouth of the harbour. You must know that Ratona is an island twenty miles off the south of a South American republic.
I didn't exactly catch the cause of his being cast away on that particular stretch of South America; but I reckon it was his own business. I asked him if he'd ever been second cook on a tramp fruiter, and he said no; so that concluded my line of surmises.
The horrid tragedy in which he had played such a disastrous part now began, for the first time since he stole on board the fruiter, a wretched fugitive, to lose its sharper outlines. Distance lent assuagement to his view.
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