The Ne'er-Do-Well Part 12

"I? Oh, not for a long time. You see, I'm so busy I never seem to have time to work. Work doesn't really appeal to me, anyway. I suppose if I had to hustle I could, but--what's the use?"

"What is it that keeps you so busy? What are you going to do when you get back, for instance?"

"Well, I'm going to Ormond for the auto races, and I may enter my new car. If I don't get hurt in the races I'll take a hunting trip or two. Then I want to try out an iceboat on the Hudson, and I'll have to be back in New Haven by the time the baseball squad limbers up. Oh, I have plenty of work ahead!"

Mrs. Cortlandt let her eyes dwell upon him curiously for a moment; then she said:

"Have you no ambition?"

"Certainly."

"What is it?"

"Why--" Kirk hesitated. "I can't say right off the reel, but I've got it--lots of it."

"Is there no--girl, for instance? Have you never been in love?"

"Oh, see here, now!" Anthony blushed in a manner to excite the envy of any woman. "I don't like 'em. I'd rather play football."

"That explains something. When the time comes you will cease wasting your life and--"

"I'm NOT wasting my life," the young man denied hotly. "I'm having a great time; simply immense."

"I remember reading an article once by a man who attacked American colleges with bitter personal feeling, on the ground that they fostered exactly the att.i.tude toward life which you have just expressed."

Anthony looked sober. "That was my father," he said.

"Really! How stupid of me to forget the name. But I don't agree with him," she continued, gently. "You merely lack stimulus. If you should meet the right woman--" Then, seeing the amus.e.m.e.nt in his face; "Believe me, I know what I am talking about. I know what a woman can do. Your life has been too easy and placid. You need some disturbing element to make it ferment."

"But I don't want to ferment."

"Why don't you stay in Panama and go to work?"

"Work? Hideous word! For one thing, I haven't time. I must get back--"

"You will find great opportunities there."

"But how about the girl who is to sour the syrup of my being and make it ferment?"

"Oh, she may appear at any moment; but, joking aside, you had better think over what I have said." She left him with an admonitory shake of her head.

The SANTA CRUZ was now rapidly drawing out of the cold northern winter and into a tropic warmth. Already the raw chill of higher lat.i.tudes was giving way to a balmy, spring-like temperature, while the glittering suns.h.i.+ne transformed the sea into a lively, gleaming expanse of sapphire. The nights were perfect, the days divine. The pa.s.sengers responded as if to a magic draught, and Kirk found his blood filled with a new vigor.

A brief sight of Columbus' Landfall served to break the monotony; then followed a swift flight past low, tropical islands ringed with coral sand, upon which broke a lazy, milk-white surf. Through the gla.s.ses villages were spied, backed by palm groves and guarded by tall sentinel lighthouses; but the Santa Cruz pushed steadily southward, her decks as level as a dancing floor, the melancholy voice of her bell tolling the leagues as they slipped past. The eastern tongue of Cuba rose out of the horizon, then dropped astern, and the gentle trades began to fan the travellers. Now that they were in the Caribbean, schools of flying fish whisked out from under the s.h.i.+p's prow, and away, like tiny silver- sheathed arrows. New constellations rose into the evening sky. It became impossible to rest indoors, with the trade-winds calling, and the pa.s.sengers spent long, lazy hours basking in the breath of the tropics and grudging the pleasure of which sleep deprived them.

It was the last night of the voyage, and the thrill of approaching land was felt by all. As usual, the monotony of the first day or two had given way to an idle contentment and a vague regret at leaving the s.h.i.+p and severing the ties so newly made. Home, instead of looming close and overshadowing, had become a memory rather indistinct and blurred, clouded by the proximity of the new and unknown.

Kirk Anthony acknowledged to a reluctant enjoyment of the change and found himself less eager to go back. As he paced the deck after dinner he felt a lurking desire to defer his return until he had absorbed something more of this warmth and languor; he even reflected that he might welcome a stay of some length in the tropics if it were not for the fact that he had so much to do.

Mrs. Cortlandt joined him as usual, and they did a mile around the promenade, chatting idly of many things. The evening was too glorious to permit of early retiring, and a late hour found them leaning over the rail, side by side, while Anthony bewailed the fact that he knew nothing of the country just beyond the dark horizon ahead of them.

"You are quite right," his companion agreed. "You will miss its best flavor if you don't know the history back of it. For instance, we are now on the Spanish Main, the traditional home of romance and adventure."

"I always wanted to be a pirate," he acknowledged gravely, "up to fifteen. Then I thought I'd rather run a candy store."

"The s.h.i.+ps of Sir Henry Morgan and the galleons of His Catholic Majesty Philip of Spain sailed these waters. Over yonder"--she waved a graceful hand to the north and east--"are the haunts where the adventurers of old England used to lie in wait for their prey.

Ahead of us is the land that Pizarro soaked with blood. We're coming into the oldest country on this side of the globe, Mr.

Anthony, where men lived in peace and plenty when most of Europe was a wilderness. I suppose such things appeal more to a woman's fancy than to a man's, but to me they're mightily alluring."

Kirk wagged his head admiringly, as he said:

"I wish I could make language behave like that," and Edith Cortlandt laughed like a young girl.

"Oh, I'm not a perfervid poet," she disclaimed, "but everything down here is so full of a.s.sociation I can't help feeling it."

"I'm beginning to notice it myself. Maybe it's the climate."

"Perhaps. Anyhow, it is all very vivid to me. Did you ever stop to think how brave those men must have been who first went venturing into unknown seas in their little wooden boats?"

"They were looking for a short cut to the East Indies, weren't they?"

"Yes, to Cathay. And then the people they found and conquered! The spoils they exacted! They were men--those conquistadores--whatever else they were--big, cruel, heroic fellows like Bastida, Nicuesa, Balboa, Pedrarias the a.s.sa.s.sin, and the rest. They oppressed the natives terribly, yet they paved the way for civilization, after all. The Spaniards did try to uplift the Indians, you know. And the life in the colonies was like that in old Spain, only more romantic and picturesque. Why, whenever I pa.s.s through these Latin-American cities I see, in place of the crumbling ruins, grand cathedrals and palaces; in place of the squalid beggars idling about the market-places I see velvet-clad dons and high- born ladies."

"Aren't there any beautiful ladies left?"

"A few, perhaps."

"What happened to the cathedrals and the velvet fellows and all that?"

"Oh, the old state of affairs couldn't last forever. The Spanish administration wasn't so bad as is generally supposed, yet of course there was too much rapacity and not enough industry.

Central America, broadly speaking, was known as the treasure-chest of the world, and there were constant wars and disturbances. The colonies as a whole did not progress like those in the North, and in course of time deteriorated. The old cathedrals decayed and were not rebuilt. The old Spanish stock died out and in its stead grew up a motley race given to revolt, revolution, and corruption.

Even when the provinces became free, they weren't able to unite and form a strong nation. The Isthmus of Panama became a pest-hole where the sc.u.m of the Four Seas settled. The people became mean and unhealthy in mind and body and morals, preserving nothing except the cruelty of their forefathers. Here and there, to be sure, one comes across the old Castilian breed, like a silver thread running through a rotting altar-cloth, but only here and there, and most of those silver threads have become tarnished from contact with the fabric."

"It must be a nice place," Kirk observed with gentle sarcasm.

"It affords one a great chance to moralize, at any rate. Take the building of this ca.n.a.l, for instance. First, the French came, led by a dreamer, and poured in the wealth of an empire in order that they might exact toll from the world. You see, they were all lured by the love of gain--the Spaniards, who pillaged the natives to begin with, and the French, who set out to squeeze profit from all the other nations. But it seems as if the spot were infected. The French lost an army in their project; corruption gnawed through, and the thing ended in disgrace and disaster. Spain and France have come and gone, and at last we Yankees have arrived. It seems to be the will of G.o.d that the youngest, l.u.s.tiest people on the earth should finally be sent to clean this Augean stable."

"By Jove! I never thought of it that way."

"It is a big task, Mr. Anthony, and the mere digging of the ditch is the smallest part. There is a great deal more to be done. You see, as men attain culture, they require more than mere food and drink and bedding, and in the same way, as nations attain to greatness, they require more than mere territory--they reach out and absorb power and prestige. Our decision to build the Panama Ca.n.a.l is like the landing of another Columbus; the conquest is to follow. After that will come--who knows what? Perhaps more wars, more pillage, more injustice."

"You talk like a man," Anthony said, admiringly. "I had no idea you looked at things in such a big way."

"You are laughing at me."

"No, indeed."

"You see, it is part of my husband's profession. As to the romance--well, all women are romantic and imaginative, I suppose, and you've been an inspiring listener."