THE MAN FROM THE PLEIAD

Bedient drew from Falk a few days afterward that the Captain had planned almost exactly as it happened. Since the beginnings of unrest in Equatoria, he had transferred his banking to New York; so that in the event of defeat in war, only the lands and hacienda would revert, upon the fall of the present government. Falk could not remember (and his services dated back fifteen years, at which time he left Surrey with the Captain) when the master did not speak of Bedient’s coming.

“But for your letters, sir, Leadley and I would have come to think of you as as just one of the master’s ways, Mister Andrew.”

Falk was a middle-aged serving-class Englishman, highly trained and without humor. Leadley, the cook, and a power in his department, dated also from Surrey, which was his county. These men had learned to handle the natives to a degree, and the entire responsibility of the establishment had fallen upon them during the absences of the Captain. As chief of house-servants and as cook, these two at their best were faultless, but the life was very easy, and they were given altogether too many hands to help. Moreover, Falk and Leadley belonged to that queer human type which proceeds to burn itself out with alcohol if left alone. The latter years of such servants become a steady battle to keep sober enough for service. Each man naturally believed himself an admirable drinker.

Natives came from the entire Island to smoke and drink and weep for the Captain. Dictator Jaffier sent his “abject bereavement” by pony pack-train, which, having formed in a sort of hollow square, received the thanks of Bedient, and assurances that his policy would continue in the delightful groove worn by the late best of men. The reply of Jaffier was the offer of a public funeral in Coral City, but Bedient declined this, and the body of his friend was turned toward the East upon the shoulder of his highest hill....

Presently Bedient read the Captain’s documents. Falk and Leadley were bountifully cared for; scores of natives were remembered; the policy toward Jaffier outlined according to the best experience; and the bulk, name, lands, bonds, capital and all “to my beloved young friend, Andrew Bedient."... At the request and expense of the latter, the New York bankers sent down an agent to verify the transfer of this great fortune. A month passed a foretaste of what was to come. Bedient, prepared for greater work than this, was lonely in the sunlight.

He knew that he must soon begin to live his own life. His every faculty was deeply urging. Equatoria had little to do with the realities for which he had gathered more than thirty years’ equipment. He felt a serious responsibility toward his fortune, though absolutely without the thrill of personal possession. The just administration of these huge forces formed no little part of his work, and in his entire thinking on this subject, New York stood most directly in the need of service. It was there that the Captain’s accumulated vitality must be used for good.

Early in the second month, Bedient came in at noon from a long ride across the lands, and reaching the great porch of the hacienda, he turned to observe a tropic shower across the valley. The torrent approached at express speed. It was a clean-cut pouring, several acres in extent. Bedient watched it fill the spaces between the little hills, sweep from crest to crest, and bring out a subdued glow in the wild verdure as it swept across the main valley. Sharp was the line of dry sunlit air and gray slanting shower. Presently he heard its pounding, and the dustless slopes rolled into the gray.... Now he sniffed the acute fragrance that rushed before it in the wind, and then it climbed the drive, deluged the hacienda, and was gone.... In the moist, sweet, yellow light that filled his eyes, Bedient, fallen into deeps of contemplation, saw the face of a woman.

He went inside and looked up the Dryden sailings. The Hatteras would clear, according to schedule, in ten days. That meant that the Henlopen was now in port. His eyes had looked first for the former, since it had brought him down, and was the Captain’s favorite.... Yes, the Henlopen was due to sail to-morrow at daylight.... He told Falk he would go.... In that upper room across from his own, he bowed his head for a space, and the fragrance still there brought back the heaving cabin of the Truxton.... Then he rode down to Coral City in the last hours of daylight.

His devoirs were paid to Dictator Jaffier, who confided that he had purchased a gunboat and search-light on behalf of the government. Its delivery was but ten days off, and with it he expected to keep that old sea-fighter, Celestino Rey, better in order.... Bedient had the evening to himself. In one of the Calle Real cafes, he was attracted by the face and figure of a young white man, of magnificent proportions and remarkably clean-cut profile. The stranger sipped iced claret, watched the natives moving about, and seemed occasionally to forget himself in his thinking.

He looked more than ever a giant in the midst of the little tropical people, and seemed to feel his size in the general diminutive setting. Yet there was balance and fitness about his splendid physical organization, which suggested that he could be quick as a mink in action. He chaffed the native who waited upon him, and his face softened into charming boyishness as he laughed. His mouth was fresh as a child’s, but on a scale of grandeur. Bedient found himself smiling with him. Then there was that irresistible folding about the eyes when he laughed, which is Irish as sin, and quite as attractive. Left to himself he fell to brooding, and his brow puzzled over some matter in the frank bored way of one pinned to a textbook. Bedient sat down at the other’s table. Acquaintance was as agreeably received as offered.

The stranger’s name was Jim Framtree. He had been on the Island for several weeks, and intended to stay for awhile. He liked Equatoria well enough as well, in fact, as a man could like any place, when he was barred from the real trophy-room in the house of the world, New York.

“I’m sailing for New York in the morning,” Bedient said.

Framtree shivered and fell silent.

“You’ve found work that you like here?” Bedient asked simply.

The other glanced at him humorously, and yet with a bit of intensity, too, as if searching for the meaning under such an unadorned question.

“I seem to have caught on with Senor Rey at The Pleiad,” he replied.

“Ah

“I’m afraid you’re making a mistake, sir,” Framtree added quickly. “I’m not barred from New York on any cashier matter. You know when something you want badly and can’t have is in a town that isn’t the place for you.... Even if you like that town best on earth.... What I mean is, I’m not using The Pleiad as a hiding proposition.”

“I wasn’t thinking of that,” Bedient said.

“I suppose it would be natural down here

“But I saw you first.”

“Um-m.”

“I was only thinking,” Bedient resumed, “that if the establishment of Senor Rey palled upon you at any time, I’d like to have you come up and see me in the hills.... I’d be glad to have you come, anyway. I may not be very long in New York

“That’s mighty good of you,” Framtree declared, and yet it was obvious that he could not regard the invitation as purely a friendly impulse, even if he wished to. “I remember now. I’ve heard of your big place up there.”

“Perhaps, I’d better explain that I wasn’t thinking of Island politics when I asked you.... Queer how one has to explain things down here. I’ve noticed that it’s hard for folks to go straight at a thing.”

Framtree laughed again, and tried hard to understand what was in the other’s mind. Bedient’s simplicity was too deep for him. They talked for an hour, each singularly attracted, but evading any subject that would call in the matters of political unrest. Each felt that the other wanted to be square, but Bedient saw that it would be useless to impress upon Framtree how little hampered he was by Jaffier.... At daybreak the next morning, the fruity old Henlopen pointed out toward the reefs, and presently was nudging her way through the coral passage, as confidently as if the trick of getting to sea from Coral City was part of the weathered consciousness of her boilers and plates.