Chapter 11

"The 'Santiago' leaves here Saturday for New York. I guess you had better wait over for her," Clay said. "I'll engage your passage, and, in the meantime, Captain Stuart here will see that they treat you well in the cuartel."

The men around the table started, and sat motionless looking at Clay, but Burke only took his pipe from his mouth and knocked the ashes out on the heel of his boot. "What am I going to the cuartel for?" he asked.

"Well, the public good, I suppose," laughed Clay. "I'm sorry, but it's your own fault. You shouldn't have shown yourself here at all."

"What have you got to do with it?" asked Burke, calmly, as he began to refill his pipe. He had the air of a man who saw nothing before him but an afternoon of pleasant discourse and leisurely inactivity.

"You know what I've got to do with it," Clay replied. "I've got our concession to look after."

"Well, you're not running the town, too, are you?" asked Burke.

"No, but I'm going to run you out of it," Clay answered. "Now, what are you going to do,--make it unpleasant for us and force our hand, or drive down quietly with our friend MacWilliams here? He is the best one to take you, because he's not so well known."

Burke turned his head and looked over his shoulder at Stuart.

"You taking orders from Mr. Clay, to-day, Captain Stuart?" he asked.

"Yes," Stuart answered, smiling. "I agree with Mr. Clay in whatever he thinks right."

"Oh, well, in that case," said Burke, rising reluctantly, with a protesting sigh, "I guess I'd better call on the American minister."

"You can't. He's in Ecuador on his annual visit," said Clay.

"Indeed! That's bad for me," muttered Burke, as though in much concern. "Well, then, I'll ask you to let me see our consul here."

"Certainly," Clay assented, with alacrity. "Mr. Langham, this young gentleman's father, got him his appointment, so I've no doubt he'll be only too glad to do anything for a friend of ours."

Burke raised his eyes and looked inquiringly at Clay, as though to assure himself that this was true, and Clay smiled back at him.

"Oh, very well," Burke said. "Then, as I happen to be an Irishman by the name of Burke, and a British subject, I'll try Her Majesty's representative, and we'll see if he will allow me to be locked up without a reason or a warrant."

"That's no good, either," said Clay, shaking his head. "You fixed your nationality, as far as this continent is concerned, in Rio harbor, when Peixoto handed you over to the British admiral, and you claimed to be an American citizen, and were sent on board the 'Detroit.' If there's any doubt about that we've only got to cable to Rio Janeiro--to either legation. But what's the use? They know me here, and they don't know you, and I do. You'll have to go to jail and stay there."

"Oh, well, if you put it that way, I'll go," said Burke. "But," he added, in a lower voice, "it's too late, Clay."

The expression of amusement on Clay's face, and his ease of manner, fell from him at the words, and he pulled Burke back into the chair again. "What do you mean?" he asked, anxiously.

"I mean just that, it's too late," Burke answered. "I don't mind going to jail. I won't be there long. My work's all done and paid for. I was only staying on to see the fun at the finish, to see you fellows made fools of."

"Oh, you're sure of that, are you?" asked Clay.

"My dear boy!" exclaimed the American, with a suggestion in his speech of his Irish origin, as his interest rose. "Did you ever know me to go into anything of this sort for the sentiment of it? Did you ever know me to back the losing side? No. Well, I tell you that you fellows have no more show in this than a parcel of Sunday-school children. Of course I can't say when they mean to strike. I don't know, and I wouldn't tell you if I did. But when they do strike there'll be no striking back. It'll be all over but the cheering."

Burke's tone was calm and positive. He held the centre of the stage now, and he looked from one to the other of the serious faces around him with an expression of pitying amusement.

"Alvarez may get off, and so may Madame Alvarez," he added, lowering his voice and turning his face away from Stuart. "But not if she shows herself in the streets, and not if she tries to take those drafts and jewels with her."

"Oh, you know that, do you?" interrupted Clay.

"I know nothing," Burke replied. "At least, nothing to what the rest of them know. That's only the gossip I pick up at headquarters. It doesn't concern me. I've delivered my goods and given my receipt for the money, and that's all I care about. But if it will make an old friend feel any more comfortable to have me in jail, why, I'll go, that's all."

Clay sat with pursed lips looking at Stuart. The two boys leaned with their elbows on the tables and stared at Burke, who was searching leisurely through his pockets for his match-box. From outside came the lazy cry of a vendor of lottery tickets, and the swift, uneven patter of bare feet, as company after company of dust-covered soldiers passed on their way from the provinces, with their shoes swinging from their bayonets.

Clay slapped the table with an exclamation of impatience.

"After all, this is only a matter of business," he said, "with all of us. What do you say, Burke, to taking a ride with me to Stuart's rooms, and having a talk there with the President and Mr. Langham? Langham has three millions sunk in these mines, and Alvarez has even better reasons than that for wanting to hold his job. What do you say? That's better than going to jail. Tell us what they mean to do, and who is to do it, and I'll let you name your own figure, and I'll guarantee you that they'll meet it. As long as you've no sentiment, you might as well fight on the side that will pay best."

Burke opened his lips as though to speak, and then shut them again, closely. If the others thought that he was giving Clay's proposition a second and more serious thought, he was quick to undeceive them.

"There ARE men in the business who do that sort of thing," he said. "They sell arms to one man, and sell the fact that he's got them to the deputy-marshals, and sell the story of how smart they've been to the newspapers. And they never make any more sales after that. I'd look pretty, wouldn't I, bringing stuff into this country, and getting paid for it, and then telling you where it was hid, and everything else I knew? I've no sentiment, as you say, but I've got business instinct, and that's not business. No, I've told you enough, and if you think I'm not safe at large, why I'm quite ready to take a ride with your young friend here."

MacWilliams rose with alacrity, and beaming with pleasure at the importance of the duty thrust upon him.

Burke smiled. "The young 'un seems to like the job," he said.

"It's an honor to be associated with Captain Burke in any way," said MacWilliams, as he followed him into a cab, while Stuart galloped off before them in the direction of the cuartel.

"You wouldn't think so if you knew better," said Burke. "My friends have been watching us while we have been talking in there for the last hour. They're watching us now, and if I were to nod my head during this ride, they'd throw you out into the street and set me free, if they had to break the cab into kindling-wood while they were doing it."

MacWilliams changed his seat to the one opposite his prisoner, and peered up and down the street in some anxiety.

"I suppose you know there's an answer to that, don't you?" he asked. "Well, the answer is, that if you nod your head once, you lose the top of it."

Burke gave an exclamation of disgust, and gazed at his zealous guardian with an expression of trepidation and unconcealed disapproval. "You're not armed, are you?" he asked.

MacWilliams nodded. "Why not?" he said; "these are rather heavy weather times, just at present, thanks to you and your friends. Why, you seem rather afraid of fire-arms," he added, with the intolerance of youth.

The Irish-American touched the young man on the knee, and lifted his hat. "My son," he said, "when your hair is as gray as that, and you have been through six campaigns, you'll be brave enough to own that you're afraid of fire-arms, too."

X

Clay and Langham left MacWilliams and Stuart to look after their prisoner, and returned to the Palms, where they dined in state, and made no reference, while the women were present, to the events of the day.

The moon rose late that night, and as Hope watched it, from where she sat at the dinner-table facing the open windows, she saw the figure of a man standing outlined in silhouette upon the edge of the cliff. He was dressed in the uniform of a sailor, and the moonlight played along the barrel of a rifle upon which he leaned, motionless and menacing, like a sentry on a rampart.

Hope opened her lips to speak, and then closed them again, and smiled with pleasurable excitement. A moment later King, who sat on her right, called one of the servants to his side and whispered some instructions, pointing meanwhile at the wine upon the table. And a minute after, Hope saw the white figure of the servant cross the garden and approach the sentinel. She saw the sentry fling his gun sharply to his hip, and then, after a moment's parley, toss it up to his shoulder and disappear from sight among the plants of the garden.

The men did not leave the table with the ladies, as was their custom, but remained in the dining-room, and drew their chairs closer together.

Mr. Langham would not believe that the downfall of the Government was as imminent as the others believed it to be. It was only after much argument, and with great reluctance, that he had even allowed King to arm half of his crew, and to place them on guard around the Palms. Clay warned him that in the disorder that followed every successful revolution, the homes of unpopular members of the Cabinet were often burned, and that he feared, should Mendoza succeed, and Alvarez fall, that the mob might possibly vent its victorious wrath on the Palms because it was the home of the alien, who had, as they thought, robbed the country of the iron mines. Mr. Langham said he did not think the people would tramp five miles into the country seeking vengeance.

There was an American man-of-war lying in the harbor of Truxillo, a seaport of the republic that bounded Olancho on the south, and Clay was in favor of sending to her captain by Weimer, the Consul, and asking him to anchor off Valencia, to protect American interests. The run would take but a few hours, and the sight of the vessel's white hull in the harbor would, he thought, have a salutary effect upon the revolutionists. But Mr. Langham said, firmly, that he would not ask for help until he needed it.

"Well, I'm sorry," said Clay. "I should very much like to have that man-of-war here. However, if you say no, we will try to get along without her. But, for the present, I think you had better imagine yourself back in New York, and let us have an entirely free hand. We've gone too far to drop out," he went on, laughing at the sight of Mr. Langham's gloomy countenance. "We've got to fight them now. It's against human nature not to do it."

Mr. Langham looked appealingly at his son and at King.

They both smiled back at him in unanimous disapproval of his policy of non-interference.

"Oh, very well," he said, at last. "You gentlemen can go ahead, kill, burn, and destroy if you wish. But, considering the fact that it is my property you are all fighting about, I really think I might have something to say in the matter." Mr. Langham gazed about him helplessly, and shook his head.

"My doctor sends me down here from a quiet, happy home," he protested, with humorous pathos, "that I may rest and get away from excitement, and here I am with armed men patrolling my garden-paths, with a lot of filibusters plotting at my own dinner-table, and a civil war likely to break out, entirely on my account. And Dr. Winter told me this was the only place that would cure my nervous prostration!"

Hope joined Clay as soon as the men left the dining-room, and beckoned him to the farther end of the veranda. "Well, what is it?" she said.

"What is what?" laughed Clay. He seated himself on the rail of the veranda, with his face to the avenue and the driveway leading to the house. They could hear the others from the back of the house, and the voice of young Langham, who was giving an imitation of MacWilliams, and singing with peculiar emphasis, "There is no place like Home, Sweet Home."

"Why are the men guarding the Palms, and why did you go to the Plaza Bolivar this morning at daybreak? Alice says you left them there. I want to know what it means. I am nearly as old as Ted, and he knows. The men wouldn't tell me."

"What men?"

"King's men from the 'Vesta'. I saw some of them dodging around in the bushes, and I went to find out what they were doing, and I walked into fifteen of them at your office. They have hammocks swung all over the veranda, and a quick-firing gun made fast to the steps, and muskets stacked all about, just like real soldiers, but they wouldn't tell me why."

"We'll put you in the carcel," said Clay, "if you go spying on our forces. Your father doesn't wish you to know anything about it, but, since you have found it out for yourself, you might as well know what little there is to know. It's the same story. Mendoza is getting ready to start his revolution, or, rather, he has started it."

"Why don't you stop him?" asked Hope.

"You are very flattering," said Clay. "Even if I could stop him, it's not my business to do it as yet. I have to wait until he interferes with me, or my mines, or my workmen. Alvarez is the man who should stop him, but he is afraid. We cannot do anything until he makes the first move. If I were the President, I'd have Mendoza shot to-morrow morning and declare martial law. Then I'd arrest everybody I didn't like, and levy forced loans on all the merchants, and sail away to Paris and live happy ever after. That's what Mendoza would do if he caught any one plotting against him. And that's what Alvarez should do, too, according to his lights, if he had the courage of his convictions, and of his education. I like to see a man play his part properly, don't you? If you are an emperor, you ought to conduct yourself like one, as our German friend does. Or if you are a prize-fighter, you ought to be a human bulldog. There's no such thing as a gentlemanly pugilist, any more than there can be a virtuous burglar. And if you're a South American Dictator, you can't afford to be squeamish about throwing your enemies into jail or shooting them for treason. The way to dictate is to dictate,--not to hide indoors all day while your wife plots for you."

"Does she do that?" asked Hope. "And do you think she will be in danger--any personal danger, if the revolution comes?"

"Well, she is very unpopular," Clay answered, "and unjustly so, I think. But it would be better, perhaps, for her if she went as quietly as possible, when she does go."

"Is our Captain Stuart in danger, too?" the girl continued, anxiously. "Alice says they put up placards about him all over the city last night. She saw his men tearing them down as she was coming home. What has he done?"

"Nothing," Clay answered, shortly. "He happens to be in a false position, that's all. They think he is here because he is not wanted in his own country; that is not so. That is not the reason he remains here. When he was even younger than he is now, he was wild and foolish, and spent more money than he could afford, and lent more money to his brother-officers, I have no doubt, than they ever paid back. He had to leave the regiment because his father wouldn't pay his debts, and he has been selling his sword for the last three years to one or another king or sultan or party all over the world, in China and Madagascar, and later in Siam. I hope you will be very kind to Stuart and believe well of him, and that you will listen to no evil against him. Somewhere in England Stuart has a sister like you--about your age, I mean, that loves him very dearly, and a father whose heart aches for him, and there is a certain royal regiment that still drinks his health with pride. He is a lonely little chap, and he has no sense of humor to help him out of his difficulties, but he is a very brave gentleman. And he is here fighting for men who are not worthy to hold his horse's bridle, because of a woman. And I tell you this because you will hear many lies about him--and about her. He serves her with the same sort of chivalric devotion that his ancestors felt for the woman whose ribbons they tied to their lances, and for whom they fought in the lists."

"I understand," Hope said, softly. "I am glad you told me. I shall not forget." She sighed and shook her head. "I wish they'd let you manage it for them," she said.

Clay laughed. "I fear my executive ability is not of so high an order; besides, as I haven't been born to it, my conscience might trouble me if I had to shoot my enemies and rob the worthy merchants. I had better stick to digging holes in the ground. That is all I seem to be good for."

Hope looked up at him, quickly, in surprise.

"What do you mean by that?" she demanded. There was a tone of such sharp reproach in her voice that Clay felt himself put on the defensive.

"I mean nothing by it," he said. "Your sister and I had a talk the other day about a man's making the best of himself, and it opened my eyes to--to many things. It was a very healthy lesson."

"It could not have been a very healthy lesson," Hope replied, severely, "if it makes you speak of your work slightingly, as you did then. That didn't sound at all natural, or like you. It sounded like Alice. Tell me, did Alice say that?"

The pleasure of hearing Hope take his part against himself was so comforting to Clay that he hesitated in answering in order to enjoy it the longer. Her enthusiasm touched him deeply, and he wondered if she were enthusiastic because she was young, or because she was sure she was right, and that he was in the wrong.

"It started this way," Clay began, carefully. He was anxious to be quite fair to Miss Langham, but he found it difficult to give her point of view correctly, while he was hungering for a word that would re-establish him in his own good opinion. "Your sister said she did not think very much of what I had done, but she explained kindly that she hoped for better things from me. But what troubles me is, that I will never do anything much better or very different in kind from the work I have done lately, and so I am a bit discouraged about it in consequence. You see," said Clay, "when I come to die, and they ask me what I have done with my ten fingers, I suppose I will have to say, 'Well, I built such and such railroads, and I dug up so many tons of ore, and opened new countries, and helped make other men rich.' I can't urge in my behalf that I happen to have been so fortunate as to have gained the good-will of yourself or your sister. That is quite reason enough to me, perhaps, for having lived, but it might not appeal to them. I want to feel that I have accomplished something outside of myself--something that will remain after I go. Even if it is only a breakwater or a patent coupling. When I am dead it will not matter to any one what I personally was, whether I was a bore or a most charming companion, or whether I had red hair or blue. It is the work that will tell. And when your sister, whose judgment is the judgment of the outside world, more or less, says that the work is not worth while, I naturally feel a bit discouraged. It meant so much to me, and it hurt me to find it meant so little to others."

Hope remained silent for some time, but the rigidity of her attitude, and the tightness with which she pressed her lips together, showed that her mind was deeply occupied. They both sat silent for some few moments, looking down toward the distant lights of the city. At the farther end of the double row of bushes that lined the avenue they could see one of King's sentries passing to and fro across the roadway, a long black shadow on the moonlit road.

"You are very unfair to yourself," the girl said at last, "and Alice does not represent the opinion of the world, only of a very small part of it--her own little world. She does not know how little it is. And you are wrong as to what they will ask you at the end. What will they care whether you built railroads or painted impressionist pictures? They will ask you 'What have you made of yourself? Have you been fine, and strong, and sincere?' That is what they will ask. And we like you because you are all of these things, and because you look at life so cheerfully, and are unafraid. We do not like men because they build railroads, or because they are prime ministers. We like them for what they are themselves. And as to your work!" Hope added, and then paused in eloquent silence. "I think it is a grand work, and a noble work, full of hardships and self-sacrifices. I do not know of any man who has done more with his life than you have done with yours." She stopped and controlled her voice before she spoke again. "You should be very proud," she said.

Clay lowered his eyes and sat silent, looking down the roadway. The thought that the girl felt what she said so deeply, and that the fact that she had said it meant more to him than anything else in the world could mean, left him thrilled and trembling. He wanted to reach out his hand and seize both of hers, and tell her how much she was to him, but it seemed like taking advantage of the truths of a confessional, or of a child's innocent confidences.

"No, Miss Hope," he answered, with an effort to speak lightly, "I wish I could believe you, but I know myself better than any one else can, and I know that while my bridges may stand examination--_I_ can't."

Hope turned and looked at him with eyes full of such sweet meaning that he was forced to turn his own away.

"I could trust both, I think," the girl said.

Clay drew a quick, deep breath, and started to his feet, as though he had thrown off the restraint under which he had held himself.

It was not a girl, but a woman who had spoken then, but, though he turned eagerly toward her, he stood with his head bowed, and did not dare to read the verdict in her eyes.

The clatter of horses' hoofs coming toward them at a gallop broke in rudely upon the tense stillness of the moment, but neither noticed it. "How far," Clay began, in a strained voice, "how far," he asked, more steadily, "could you trust me?"

Hope's eyes had closed for an instant, and opened again, and she smiled upon him with a look of perfect confidence and content. The beat of the horses' hoofs came now from the end of the driveway, and they could hear the men at the rear of the house pushing back their chairs and hurrying toward them. Hope raised her head, and Clay moved toward her eagerly. The horses were within a hundred yards. Before Hope could speak, the sentry's voice rang out in a hoarse, sharp challenge, like an alarm of fire on the silent night. "Halt!" they heard him cry. And as the horses tore past him, and their riders did not turn to look, he shouted again, "Halt, damn you!" and fired. The flash showed a splash of red and yellow in the moonlight, and the report started into life hundreds of echoes which carried it far out over the waters of the harbor, and tossed it into sharp angles, and distant corners, and in an instant a myriad of sounds answered it; the frightened cry of night-birds, the barking of dogs in the village below, and the footsteps of men running.

Clay glanced angrily down the avenue, and turned beseechingly to Hope.