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Sadler said they had gone up the mule path expecting to climb Sarasara, but getting near the top of her, she began to act as if she disliked them, Sarasara did, and she threw rocks vicious and more than playful; so that they left her, and went on up the pass to look for the mule train. They didn't know anything had happened in Portate.
But makin' a supposition, now, suppose I was arrested some, and set to bossin' that gang out there for the benefit of Portate, and quartered, for safe keepin' till the trial, at the Hotel Republic, as a partial return for being exhibited in disgrace.
We put the mule-drivers up that night and charged them South American rates. That was the way Stevey Todd and I started keeping the Helen Mar as a hotel. Sadler and Irish didn't care for the business. They went down to Portate and got jobs with the Transport Company, but Stevey Todd and I stayed by the Helen Mar, and ran the hotel.
Now she was going back, expecting to pick up a cargo of rubber and cocoa and what not, along the West Coast. Captain Goodwin was master, and it happened he was short of hands, including his cook. He hired Stevey Todd for cook, and shipped the rest of us willing enough. It was in October as I recollect it, and sometime in November when we came to lie in the harbour of the city of Portate.
First, if Pete Hillary is Jamaican, he's no citizen of Portate. See? No good, anyway. No. British consul, he don't care, except for the principle. Not really. No. You want to pacify him, meaning his principle. That's so. Then that Hottentot Society. Got to fix them. Course you have. Don't want to disoblige honest voters of Ferdinand Street. No.
Stevey Todd sat down and cried. I was disgusted with seeing the hotel standing on her roof-garden and thinking of the mess there was inside her, all come of a tremblorito no bigger than enough to cave in the bank and tip the Helen Mar over, and enough tidal wave to wash the streets of Portate, which needed it. I saw the Sarasara shaking her old umbrella at us, and I was mad.
They were surprised together by the husband, and slain on the spot. "Quali colombe, dal disio chiamate, Con l'ali aperte e ferme, al dolce nido Volan per l'aer dal voler portate Cotali uscir de la schiera ov'è Dido, A noi venendo per l'aer maligno, Sì forte fu l'affettuoso grido."
Men from the ships in the harbour came out, and carried off advertisements of the hotel, and plastered the coast with them. I saw an advertisement of the "Hotel Helen Mar" ten years after in a shipping office in San Francisco, and it read: "Hotel Helen Mar, Portate, Peru. Mountain and Sea Breezes. Board and Lodging Good and Reasonable. Sailor's Snug Harbour. Welcome Jolly Tar.
Down the valley we saw pieces of the town of Portate lying along, and beyond we saw the Pacific. And Stevey Todd wiped his face on his sleeves, and he says, "Maybe that's ridiculous, and maybe it ain't" he says, "but I'd argue it." We swabbed off the decks of the Helen Mar, and scuttled the bottom of her to let the water out. Then the next day we went down to Portate.
I was feeling injured too, thinking Sadler was likely to be having more happiness than he deserved, maybe setting up a centre of insurrection in Portate, and leaving me out of it. Cuco come out in his boat, putting it under the ship's side, and crying up to us to buy his mangoes.
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