CONSULATE

By ERIC WALROND TO the dusky throng silently gathered in the waiting room Leon Cabrol was the arbiter of life and death. He was the Consul's clerk. Clad in a pongee silk suit, Cabrol was sitting at a long table behind the tall slatted railing. He was patiently-putting the finishing touches to the papers of a cargo steamer due to sail at dusk from Limon Bay.

A middle-aged man of colour, Cabrol was a native of Demerara. lie was heavily built, with thin, sandy hair, an aquiline nose and sunken expressionless eyes. Two years in the funereal climate of Colon had already begun to tell on him. He was sallow, yellow-eyed, white-lipped.

Having " despatched the ship," Cabrol came from behind the table and stood before the small square opening in the railing. A barely perceptible movement occurred in the room. A Negress who owned a fried fish and muffins stand on the Wharf Aux Herbes elbowed her way up to the railing. From a dirty blue handkerchief she emptied on the ledge a spate of golden coins.

" Me 'fraid," she murmured, half-apologetically, " de Spaniards will steal it, sah." She dived into the flabby regions of her bodice and produced a passbook on. a Jamaica bank. Pushing it over toward Cabrol she added, with a spirited, self-gratifying air, " An' if anybody gwine steal me money me radder them steal it in Jamaica ! "

" How much yo' got heah ? " drawled the clerk.

" Twenty pounds," she said, " Count um an' see, no."

But Cabrol had already done that. He gathered up the sovereigns and resumed his seat at the table. He entered the deposit in the passbook, recorded the 'entry in a ledger and handed the passbook back to the Negress.

" Next " cried Cabrol.

Two men in baggy blue jumpers and mud-caked breeches came up to the " Oi's Eddie Culoden's half-brother," said one.

" Have you been to the French Consul yet ? " asked Cabrol.

" No, but the patois man wit' he head split open is ovah there now, takin' out a writ."

" All right," murmured Cabrol, " just step round here."

He showed the men round the veranda and through a side door into the office. Re drew up two chairs for them and sitting down himself, pulled out the table drawer and took. out some sheets of foolscap.

" Oi was in the ruin shop," declared the man with Eddie Culoden's half-brother, " when the Spaniards rush down 'pon Eddie. Oi see him fall, holdin' his head, an' de blood runnin' down his face —."

" Good gracious ! " interposed a Negress from the opposite side of the railing, " tek unna time."

With the foolscap spread out before him Cabrcl began taking down the particulars of the case.

• • • It was Eddie Culoden's first visit to the canteen. Newly arrived to take up a brakeman's job at " Kilometer 74 "- a squalid, fly-by-night town on the French canal—Eddie was still more or less of a tenderfoot. Coming to the Isthmus from the island of St. Kitts, Eddie's brief appren- ticeship at Colon—both in the railway yards and the dazzling night-life of Spanish Town—had - taught him little beyond the art of standing in the path of a flying locomotive and safely easing himself up on the cow-catcher. To hop a passing train Or " buck " a fast approaching engine with style, grace and reckless ease was a source of great pride to Eddie.

He made directly for the bar. His arrival there coin- cided oddly with the end of Concha's patience. Concha, —a mestiza with an olive pigment, insolent wine-coloured lips and inscrutable grey eyes,—was the girl behind the bar. " No hago negocio," snapped Concha at a buckra customer, " soy la mujer de Pablo Pequetio." There was no reason for him to have confused her with the girls insinuating themselves like ticks in the fleeces of the lambs flocking into the canteen from the canal works ; no excuse to insult her with his steady denuding gaze. " I have already told him I'm Pablo Pequefio's woman and still he keeps on annoying me. Pest ! " All eyes at the bar turned on the buckra,—unshaven, green eyes burned a dull glow by a chronic excess of absinthe, a cork hat awry, trousers of blue denim and yellow sabots. With averted eyes the buckra started to slink off, bumped straight into Eddie. He spun round, facing the Negro. It was instantly clear that he approved of Eddie. " Je suis royaliste, moi," he said, swaying drunkenly, " et toi ? " He reached out and grabbed Eddie by the shirt bosom. " Hey ! " cried Eddie, " wha' you think you doin', ni Man, unhandle muh ! " Pablo Pequetio, a peon extremely adept at twirling a machete, quietly strode up. Concha ran from behind the bar and followed beside him. "Da le palo " hissed one of the men at the bar. Suddenly, the curved steel blade of a machete flashed in the air ; fell. " But Oi ain't do nutton," cried Eddie Culoden, reeling as in a daze, " Oi ain't do nutton—" " Next ! " cried Leon Cabrol.

A squat, unctuous Oriental with a naked dome and a curling pigtail, Mclean Sam rose. Round him swarmed a small, doll-like brood of six yellow progeny. With a proudly paternal air, Melican patted the little ones along gently.

As Melican approached the railing, a Negress who had been sitting beside him got up and went and stood by the door to the veranda. She drew closer about . her slender shoulders the black silk shawl that she wore and let her eyes travel slowly from the scarlet buds of the hibiscus and the white-spotted green leaves of the crotons lying between the young palm trees which fringed the gravel path outside the veranda, to the serene, silver- sunlit glimpses of Limon Bay beyond.

Bowing profusely, Melicar handed Cabrol a passport, " Where are you going, ? "

" Hong Kong " " Taking all these children with you ? "

"Yes ! " replied Melican with a grin. _ "What about the children's mother," said Cabrol, affixing a stamp to the passport, " isn't she going, too ? "

The Chinaman turned and glanced at the tall, willowy Negress standing dreamily by the door. "No!" he replied, again grinning, "she no can go, too." The clerk returned the Chinaman his passport, accepted the consular fee- and Meiican Sam with his exquisitely • unreal little brood went out. • -" Who's next ? "

A large and bejewelled Negress, poised with incredible certitude on a pair of red, thimble-heeled shoes, swept up to the railing. She wore a " garden party " Leghorn hat turned up in front and she carried a tiny parasol.

" What is it, Mary ? " cried Cabrol sharply..

" It's dis yah gal, sah," whined Mary, turning to make way for Rhona. " Hurry up, gal, an' don't keep the Consul- waitin'."

The girl crept forward with downcast eyes. A copper- coloured admixture of Hindu and Negro, she was ex- tremely slender, long-legged, fourteen years old.

" What has she done now ? " asked Cabrol.

" She won't behave 'arseif, sah," declared Mary. "All me beat 'ar, an' tump 'ar round, she won't change 'ar ways, salt. She still a go out at night time, till me can't stand 'ar no mo', sah. Mc want yo' full send 'ar 'back to 'ar moomah in Jainaica."

A puzzled frown appeared on Cabrol's brow. " You know, Mary," he said, " the Consul can't send her home against her will. If she doesn't want to go nobody can compel her." He gazed at shy, misty-eyed Rhona wincing under the accusation.

" Hold up yo' head, miss ! " cried Mary, " befo' me box yo' heaps ! An' don't shub out yo' mout' like yo' is any woman ! " She turned to Cabrol with a confidential air : " Me tell.yo' de gal so rude Inc can't even speak to 'ar now," " What's the matter, Rhona ? " asked Cabrol, " why don't you want to behave like a nice little girl ? "

" She na'h tell yo' de troot, salt," blurted out Rhona. " She want fo' send me back to Jamaica because me refuse fo' let 'ar chuck me down in Spanish Town among all the neygur men."

. With his head slightly cocked on one side, Cabrol looked steadily at Mary.

" Land me Gand ! " cried the Negress, properly seanda- lised: -" Look how de gal stan' up bcfo' de Consul an' trespitss 'pOn me character. Land ! Yo' evah see such a bare-faced liad in all yo' bahn days ! Gal stand up befo' de Consul an' say me wahn send 'ar down in Spanish Town ! An,' hafta all me done do far 'ar. Hafta me tek de wretch out de buckra cane patch an' bring 'ar wid me own- a money all de way from Cobie to Colon, an' clothes 'ar, an' feed 'ar till she fat like a mullet, two whole o' year now, an' dis is dc tanks me did got ! " She seized the child by the arm and dragged her off. " Come along yo' little tattle-tale wretch yo', me gwine show 3,-o' how fo' stan' up befo' de Consul an' disgrace me character."

" Next ! " cried Cabrol, scanning the slowly diminishing throng.