A Jolly Fellowship Part 7

"No. No. For one. Four bean two dollar."

We both exclaimed at this, for it was double the regular price of the beans.

"All right," said Maiden's Heart. "Twenty-five cents, daytime. Fifty cents, night."

We looked at each other, and concluded to pay the price and depart. I gave him two dollars, and asked him to open the gate and let us out.

[Ill.u.s.tration: "ANOTHER BEAN."]

He grinned.

"No. No. We got no key. Captain got key. Come up wall. Go down wall."

At this, we walked out into the square, and were about to ascend the inclined plane when the sentinel came up and stopped us. Thereupon a low conversation ensued between him and Maiden's Heart, at the end of which the sentry put his hand into his pocket and pulled out three beans, which he held out to us. I did not hesitate, but gave him a dollar and a half for them. He took the money and let us pa.s.s on,--Maiden's Heart at my side.

"You want more bean?" said he.

"Oh, no!" I answered. "No, indeed," said Rectus.

When we reached the place where we had left our apparatus, I swung the rope over the wall, and, hooking the grapnel firmly on the inside, prepared to go down, for, as before, I wished to be under Rectus, if he should slip. But Maiden's Heart put his hand on my shoulder.

"Hold up!" he said. "I got 'nother bean. Buy this."

"Don't want it," said I.

"Yes. Yes," said Maiden's Heart, and he coolly unhooked the grapnel from the wall.

I saw that it was of no use to contend with a big fellow like that, as strong as two common men, and I bought the bean.

I took the grapnel from Maiden's Heart, who seemed to give it up reluctantly, and as I hooked it on the wall, I felt a hand upon my shoulder. I looked around, and saw the sentinel. He held out to me another bean. It was too dark to see the quality of it, but I thought it was very small. However, I bought it. One of these fellows must be treated as well as the other.

Maiden's Heart and the sentry were now feeling nervously in their pockets.

I shook my head vigorously, and saying, "No more! no more!" threw myself over the wall, and seized the rope, Rectus holding the grapnel in its place as I did so. As I let myself down from knot to knot, a thought crossed my mind: "How are we going to get that grapnel after we both are down?"

It was a frightening thought. If the two Indians should choose, they could keep the rope and grapnel, and, before morning, the whole posse of red-skins might be off and away! I did not think about their being so far from home, and all that. I only thought that they'd be glad to get out, and that they would all come down our rope.

These reflections, which ran through my mind in no time at all, were interrupted by Rectus, who called down from the top of the wall, in a voice that was a little too loud to be prudent:

"Hurry! I think he's found another bean!"

I was on the ground in a few moments, and then Rectus came down. I called to him to come slowly and be very careful, but I can't tell how relieved I was when I saw him fairly over the wall and on his way down.

When we both stood on the ground, I took hold of the rope and shook it.

I am not generally nervous, but I was a little nervous then. I did not shake the grapnel loose. Then I let the rope go slack, for a foot or two, and gave it a big sweep to one side. To my great delight, over came the grapnel, nearly falling on our heads. I think I saw Maiden's Heart make a grab at it as it came over, but I am not sure. However, he poked his head over the wall and said:

"Good-bye! Come again."

We answered, "Good-bye," but didn't say anything about coming again.

As we hurried along homeward, Rectus said:

"If one of those Indians had kept us up there, while the other one ran into the barracks and got a fresh stock of sea-beans, they would have just bankrupted us."

"No, they wouldn't," I said. "For I hadn't much more change with me. And if I had had it, I wouldn't have given them any more. I'd have called up the captain first. The thing was getting too expensive."

"Well, I'm glad I'm out of it," said Rectus. "And I don't believe much in any of those Indians being very innocent. I thought Maiden's Heart was one of the best of them, but he's a regular rascal. He knew we wanted to back out of that affair, and he just fleeced us."

"I believe he would rather have had our scalps than our money, if he had had us out in his country," I said.

"That's so," said Rectus. "A funny kind of a maiden's heart he's got."

We were both out of conceit with the n.o.ble red man. Rectus took his proclamation out of his pocket as we walked along the sea-wall, and, tearing it into little pieces, threw it into the water. When we reached the steam-s.h.i.+p wharf, we walked out to the end of it, to get rid of the rope and grapnel. I whirled the grapnel round and round, and let the whole thing fly far out into the harbor. It was a sheer waste of a good strong rope, but we should have had a dreary time getting the knots out of it.

After we got home I settled up our accounts, and charged half the sea-beans to Rectus, and half to myself.

CHAPTER VI.

THE GIRL ON THE BEACH.

I was not very well satisfied with our trip over the walls of San Marco.

In the first place, when the sea-beans, the rope and the grapnel were all considered, it was a little too costly. In the second place, I was not sure that I had been carrying out my contract with Mr. Colbert in exactly the right spirit; for although he had said nothing about my duties, I knew that he expected me to take care of his son, and paid me for that. And I felt pretty sure that helping a fellow climb up a knotted rope into an old fort by night was not the best way of taking care of him. The third thing that troubled me in regard to this matter was the feeling I had that Rectus had led me into it; that he had been the leader and not I. Now, I did not intend that anything of that kind should happen again. I did not come out on this expedition to follow Rectus around; indeed, it was to be quite the other way. But, to tell the truth, I had not imagined that he would ever try to make people follow him. He never showed at school that such a thing was in him. So, for these three reasons, I determined that there were to be no more sc.r.a.pes of that sort, which generally came to nothing, after all.

For the next two or three days we roved around the old town, and into two or three orange-groves, and went out sailing with Mr. Cholott, who owned a nice little yacht, or sail-boat, as we should call it up north.

The sailing here is just splendid, and, one morning, we thought we'd hire a boat for ourselves and go out fis.h.i.+ng somewhere. So we went down to the yacht-club wharf to see about the boat that belonged to old Menendez--Rectus's Minorcan. There were lots of sail-boats there as well as row-boats, but we hunted up the craft we were after, and, by good luck, found Menendez in her, bailing her out.

So we engaged her, and he said he'd take us over to the North Beach to fish for ba.s.s. That suited us,--any beach and any kind of fish,--provided he'd hurry up and get his boat ready. While he was scooping away, and we were standing on the wharf watching him, along came Crowded Owl, the young Indian we had always liked--that is, ever since we had known any of them. He came up, said "How?" and shook hands, and then pulled out some sea-beans. The sight of these things seemed to make me sick, and as for Rectus, he sung out:

"Do' wan' 'em!" so suddenly that it seemed like one word, and a pretty savage one at that.

Crowded Owl looked at me, but I shook my head, and said, "No, no, no!"

Then he drew himself up and just stood there. He seemed struck dumb; but that didn't matter, as he couldn't talk to us, anyway. But he didn't go away. When we walked farther up the wharf, he followed us, and again offered us some beans. I began to get angry, and said "No!" pretty violently. At this, he left us, but as we turned at the end of the wharf, we saw him near the club-house, standing and talking with Maiden's Heart.

"I think it's a shame to let those Indians wander about here in that way," said Rectus. "They ought to be kept within bounds."

I couldn't help laughing at this change of tune, but said that I supposed only a few of them got leave of absence at a time.

"Well," said Rectus, "there are some of them that ought never to come out."

"h.e.l.lo!" said old Menendez, sticking his head up above the edge of the wharf. "We're ready now. Git aboard."

And so we scrambled down into the sail-boat, and Menendez pushed off, while the two Indians stood and watched us as we slowly moved away.