CHAPTER II.
JUAN RAMIREZ INTRODUCES HIMSELF.
Senor Vasquez, a middle-aged Spaniard with the air of a prosperous merchant, pushed his way through to the carriage.
The crowd, scenting as if by instinct some new trouble for the boy, made way for the newcomer.
Vasquez’s eyes glittered. He regarded the boy with a look of evil triumph, though his manner, as he stepped into the carriage, was faultlessly diplomatic.
“You will excuse my intrusion?” he begged.
“I shall have to,” was Hal’s cold rejoinder.
“I was anxious to see you. This meeting has given me great pleasure.”
Then, lowering his voice, he added:
“Senor Maynard, your employer owes me, as you know, two thousand dollars. I must have that money at once.”
“If Mr. Richardson owes you anything,” replied Hal, “he will pay it.”
“Bah! Do you think I am so simple? Senor Richardson left yesterday for Key West.”
“I repeat,” came firmly from Hal, “that, if he owes you anything he will pay it.”
“And I, my dear young friend,” rejoined the Spaniard, “assure you that I mean to collect from you. You have the money. I know it.”
Hal tried not to start at this cool piece of assurance.
“I know,” continued Senor Vasquez, in the same low tone, “where you collected the money. I know just how much you collected, and can tell you, to a peseta, just how much you carry in a certain bag. Ha! my friend, you do not seem happy over my knowledge. But a trustworthy man of mine has followed you. You see that there is no use denying what my faithful agent told me.”
“But did he tell you,” smiled Hal, coolly, “where I took that bag?”
Senor Vasquez changed color and hesitated.
That was enough to show observant Hal that his “bluff” had a chance of winning.
“If he did not tell you that,” resumed the American, “go back and cane your agent for a sleepy fellow. Senor Vasquez, if you meant to wrest the money from me by force, you should have employed a better agent.”
Maynard’s manner was so cool and convincing that for a moment the Spaniard was staggered.
“Ha!” he cried, suddenly. “Whatever you have done with the money, you have not had chance to send it out of Cuba, and your last chance to do that is gone. Perhaps you will conclude to tell me where the money is.”
“Assuredly not,” rejoined Hal, stoutly.
“Now, if I were to make a few remarks about you to the crowd which surges about this carriage, do you know what would happen to you?”
“Certainly,” replied Hal. “I should be in danger of being killed.”
“Do you feel like taking the risk?”
“If you were scoundrel enough, senor, I should be compelled to take it.”
Vasquez’s black eyes snapped dangerously.
“I have only to say the word,” he suggested.
Hal was playing a desperate game. The thought drove some of the color from his cheeks.
“Will you tell me where the money is?” insisted the Spaniard.
“Suppose that I did not know, how could I tell you?”
Vasquez snorted impatiently, then beckoned to one of the leaders of the mob, who quickly approached.
“Your last chance, Senor Maynard,” whispered the Spaniard.
“I can tell you nothing.”
As Hal uttered these words he expected to be handed over to the Spanish mob.
To his surprise Vasquez’s manner swiftly changed.
To the ring-leader Senor Vasquez said:
“Pedro, I trust that your friends will not molest this young man. He is in a measure under my protection.”
“Senor Vasquez’s words always carry weight,” was the quick, respectful answer.
“My dear young friend,” went on the Spaniard, “I may see you again. If we do meet, I trust I shall find you more gracious.”
With that the Spaniard slipped quickly from the carriage, and the driver, taking the cue, turned up one of the streets into the city.
Jeers followed, but nothing else happened.
“Vasquez is as slick as ever,” mused Hal, sinking back on the cushion. “At first, he thought he would frighten me. Now perhaps he means to call upon me at the hotel, try to convince me that he saved my life, and thus work upon my gratitude. If Senor Vasquez imagines that he can persuade me to betray my good old employer, he will wake up and find it all a dream!
“But first of all he will send his agents out again, to see if he can get them on the track of the place where the money is. How my Spanish pirate would swear if he knew that he had been within a foot of the money all the while! Yet, because I have fooled the fellow this time, I must not underrate him. He is deadly!”
Deadly, indeed! Vasquez, though a rich merchant, had seldom earned an honest dollar.
He belonged to a Spanish type that has been common in Cuba. American merchants and planters, especially those who were new to the island, had been his especial game for years.
He sought the acquaintance of such “new” Americans, tendered them his services and goods, and charged exorbitantly for both.
Should an American planter protest, the crop in one of his sugar or tobacco fields was burned, nor was it long before the planter learned that “irrepressible friends of Senor Vasquez had rebuked a grasping foreigner.”
Should an American merchant protest at Vasquez’s charges, something happened to the “impudent merchant’s” stores or warehouses.
Yet Vasquez himself had always kept on the safe side of the law, while cheerfully ruining Americans.
They were simply compelled to submit to his extortions. One American, a planter, who had resolutely resisted the Spaniard, had been found dead, but the crime could be fastened on no one.
Just before the outbreak of the Cuban rebellion, Henry Richardson had started sugar plantations in the interior. He had fallen into Vasquez’s hands at the outset, and had been systematically plundered.
Hal Maynard, who had come to Cuba a year before as Mr. Richardson’s private secretary, had detected the Spaniard in several doubtful dealings.
Naturally Vasquez’s feeling for our hero was far from cordial.
While Hal and his employer were still in the interior, Vasquez had tried to involve them in trouble with the Spanish authorities.
This menace Mr. Richardson had dodged by paying a liberal bribe to the officer commanding the nearest garrison.
Nevertheless, more dangers threatened these two Americans.
Then Consul General Lee’s call had come for Americans to leave Cuba. Mr. Richardson had gone the day before. Hal had lingered long enough to collect two thousand dollars due his employer. This accomplished, he had traveled hastily to Havana, meaning to leave there on the historic ninth of April. We have seen how he had reached there too late.
The money that Vasquez claimed as his due was the balance of an exorbitant bill. He had already been paid far more than he was entitled to.
But he had hoped to overtake and intimidate the American boy.
The carriage drew up before the hotel door, which appeared deserted as, indeed, it was, for with money and food both scarce in Havana, the hotels stand but a poor show of patronage.
“Your three fares, peon,” said Hal, dropping a few coins in the driver’s hand.
“Four pesetas more,” insisted the driver.
Hal paid it, without protest, and disappeared inside. He was quickly shown to a room, and requested that his trunk be sent up.
“Although I ordered that sent here from the interior,” he smiled, as he bent over the box, “I expected to leave it behind.”
Unlocking the lid, he examined the articles in the trunk for some moments, until a warning “Ss-sst!” reached his ear.
Rising quickly, Hal saw from whence the signal had come.
In the aperture made by an open skylight overhead appeared the head of a dark-skinned young man.
His bright, restless eyes took in everything in the room, our hero included.
“You are an American?” he asked, as Hal stepped under the skylight.
“Yes.”
“Then I am your friend. But have you an enemy?”
“I—I fear I have.”
“Look out of the window toward the harbor. Then come back.”
Hal quickly obeyed, returning with a perturbed face.
“You saw Senor Vasquez approaching, with two officers and a squad of soldiers?”
“Just that!” affirmed Hal.
“The officers have a pretense, but Vasquez will really seek your money. If you have it not with you, or know a safe hiding place, you will fool him, but if the money is in your possession, it will surely be taken from you.”
Hal hesitated, regarding the speaker with a look full of penetration.
What he saw was the frank, pleasing face of a youth of eighteen. Somehow, Hal’s heart went out to the stranger.
“If,” said the other, “you have the money, and wish to save it, you can trust it with me, senor.”
“What could you do with it?” projected Hal.
“Drop it into one of my pockets,” added the other, adding with a laugh:
“No one would search such a thin, ragged Cuban as I for the possession of so much money. But think quickly, senor, for Vasquez will be here in another moment. Juan Ramirez is my name.”
“A Cuban?” asked Hal.
“See!” And Juan drew from a pocket what could easily become his death-warrant—a small Cuban flag.
This he kissed with a simple, unaffected air of devotion.
“By Jove, I’ll trust you,” murmured Hal. “I’ve yet to meet a Cuban thief!”
R-rip! In a second he began to unbutton his clothing, bringing out to view from under his shirt a long, thin bag.
“This contains two thousand dollars,” he whispered.
“And if anything happens to you, to whom does the money belong?”
“Henry Richardson, at Key West.”
“He shall have it,” promised the Cuban. “Hush! There are steps on the stairs.”
Like a flash, Ramirez vanished.
“Have I been duped?” wondered Hal, with a quick thrill of apprehension.
Ramirez had looked like a fellow to be trusted. Yet, if Hal had kept the money about him, it would soon pass into the hands of Vasquez, who would be able to persuade the Spanish judges that his claim was just.
“If Ramirez has stolen it,” quivered Hal, “all I can say is that I’d sooner see him get it than Vasquez.”
Tramp! tramp! tramp! Reaching the head of the stairs, the soldiers were now marching straight for his door.
Whack! thump! The door was thrown unceremoniously open, and the uniforms of Spain filled the room.