Chapter 14

"I will not go!" the Spanish woman cried, suddenly. "I will not leave Alvarez to that mob. If they want to kill me, let them kill me." She threw the bag that held her jewels on the bed, and pushing open the window stepped out upon the balcony. She was conspicuous in her black dress against the yellow stucco of the wall, and in an instant the mob saw her and a mad shout of exultation and anger rose from the mass that beat and crushed itself against the high iron railings of the garden. Hope caught the woman by the skirt and dragged her back. "You are mad," she said. "What good can you do your husband here? Save yourself and he will come to you when he can. There is nothing you can do for him now; you cannot give your life for him. You are wasting it, and you are risking the lives of the men who are waiting for us below. Come, I tell you."

MacWilliams left Clay waiting beside the diligence and ran from the stable through the empty house and down the marble stairs to the garden without meeting any one on his way. He saw Stuart helping and directing his men to barricade the gates with iron urns and garden benches and sentry-boxes. Outside the mob were firing at him with their revolvers, and calling him foul names, but Stuart did not seem to hear them. He greeted MacWilliams with a cheerful little laugh. "Well," he asked, "is she ready?"

"No, but we are. Clay and I've been waiting there for five minutes. We found Miss Hope's groom and sent him back to the Palms with a message to King. We told him to run the yacht to Los Bocos and lie off shore until we came. He is to take her on down the coast to Truxillo, where our man-of-war is lying, and they will give her shelter as a political refugee."

"Why don't you drive her to the Palms at once?" demanded Stuart, anxiously, "and take her on board the yacht there? It is ten miles to Bocos and the roads are very bad."

"Clay says we could never get her through the city," MacWilliams answered. "We should have to fight all the way. But the city to the south is deserted, and by going out by the back roads, we can make Bocos by ten o'clock to-night. The yacht should reach there by seven."

"You are right; go back. I will call off some of my men. The rest must hold this mob back until you start; then I will follow with the others. Where is Miss Hope?"

"We don't know. Clay is frantic. Her groom says she is somewhere in the palace."

"Hurry," Stuart commanded. "If Mendoza gets here before Madame Alvarez leaves, it will be too late."

MacWilliams sprang up the steps of the palace, and Stuart, calling to the men nearest him to follow, started after him on a run.

As Stuart entered the palace with his men at his heels, Clay was hurrying from its rear entrance along the upper hall, and Hope and Madame Alvarez were leaving the apartments of the latter at its front. They met at the top of the main stairway just as Stuart put his foot on its lower step. The young Englishman heard the clatter of his men following close behind him and leaped eagerly forward. Half way to the top the noise behind him ceased, and turning his head quickly he looked back over his shoulder and saw that the men had halted at the foot of the stairs and stood huddled together in disorder looking up at him. Stuart glanced over their heads and down the hallway to the garden beyond to see if they were followed, but the mob still fought from the outer side of the barricade. He waved his sword impatiently and started forward again. "Come on!" he shouted. But the men below him did not move. Stuart halted once more and this time turned about and looked down upon them with surprise and anger. There was not one of them he could not have called by name. He knew all their little troubles, their love-affairs, even. They came to him for comfort and advice, and to beg for money. He had regarded them as his children, and he was proud of them as soldiers because they were the work of his hands.

So, instead of a sharp command, he asked, "What is it?" in surprise, and stared at them wondering. He could not or would not comprehend, even though he saw that those in the front rank were pushing back and those behind were urging them forward. The muzzles of their carbines were directed at every point, and on their faces fear and hate and cowardice were written in varying likenesses.

"What does this mean?" Stuart demanded, sharply. "What are you waiting for?"

Clay had just reached the top of the stairs. He saw Madame Alvarez and Hope coming toward him, and at the sight of Hope he gave an exclamation of relief.

Then his eyes turned and fell on the tableau below, on Stuart's back, as he stood confronting the men, and on their scowling upturned faces and half-lifted carbines. Clay had lived for a longer time among Spanish-Americans than had the English subaltern, or else he was the quicker of the two to believe in evil and ingratitude, for he gave a cry of warning, and motioned the women away.

"Stuart!" he cried. "Come away; for God's sake, what are you doing? Come back!"

The Englishman started at the sound of his friend's voice, but he did not turn his head. He began to descend the stairs slowly, a step at a time, staring at the mob so fiercely that they shrank back before the look of wounded pride and anger in his eyes. Those in the rear raised and levelled their rifles. Without taking his eyes from theirs, Stuart drew his revolver, and with his sword swinging from its wrist-strap, pointed his weapon at the mass below him.

"What does this mean?" he demanded. "Is this mutiny?"

A voice from the rear of the crowd of men shrieked: "Death to the Spanish woman. Death to all traitors. Long live Mendoza," and the others echoed the cry in chorus.

Clay sprang down the broad stairs calling, "Come to me;" but before he could reach Stuart, a woman's voice rang out, in a long terrible cry of terror, a cry that was neither a prayer nor an imprecation, but which held the agony of both. Stuart started, and looked up to where Madame Alvarez had thrown herself toward him across the broad balustrade of the stairway. She was silent with fear, and her hand clutched at the air, as she beckoned wildly to him. Stuart stared at her with a troubled smile and waved his empty hand to reassure her. The movement was final, for the men below, freed from the reproach of his eyes, flung up their carbines and fired, some wildly, without placing their guns at rest, and others steadily and aiming straight at his heart.

As the volley rang out and the smoke drifted up the great staircase, the subaltern's hands tossed high above his head, his body sank into itself and toppled backward, and, like a tired child falling to sleep, the defeated soldier of fortune dropped back into the outstretched arms of his friend.

Clay lifted him upon his knee, and crushed him closer against his breast with one arm, while he tore with his free hand at the stock about the throat and pushed his fingers in between the buttons of the tunic. They came forth again wet and colored crimson.

"Stuart!" Clay gasped. "Stuart, speak to me, look at me!" He shook the body in his arms with fierce roughness, peering into the face that rested on his shoulder, as though he could command the eyes back again to light and life. "Don't leave me!" he said. "For God's sake, old man, don't leave me!"

But the head on his shoulder only sank the closer and the body stiffened in his arms. Clay raised his eyes and saw the soldiers still standing, irresolute and appalled at what they had done, and awe-struck at the sight of the grief before them.

Clay gave a cry as terrible as the cry of a woman who has seen her child mangled before her eyes, and lowering the body quickly to the steps, he ran at the scattering mass below him. As he came they fled down the corridor, shrieking and calling to their friends to throw open the gates and begging them to admit the mob. When they reached the outer porch they turned, encouraged by the touch of numbers, and halted to fire at the man who still followed them.

Clay stopped, with a look in his eyes which no one who knew them had ever seen there, and smiled with pleasure in knowing himself a master in what he had to do. And at each report of his revolver one of Stuart's assassins stumbled and pitched heavily forward on his face. Then he turned and walked slowly back up the hall to the stairway like a man moving in his sleep. He neither saw nor heard the bullets that bit spitefully at the walls about him and rattled among the glass pendants of the great chandeliers above his head. When he came to the step on which the body lay he stooped and picked it up gently, and holding it across his breast, strode on up the stairs. MacWilliams and Langham were coming toward him, and saw the helpless figure in his arms.

"What is it?" they cried; "is he wounded, is he hurt?"

"He is dead," Clay answered, passing on with his burden. "Get Hope away."

Madame Alvarez stood with the girl's arms about her, her eyes closed and her figure trembling.

"Let me be!" she moaned. "Don't touch me; let me die. My God, what have I to live for now?" She shook off Hope's supporting arm, and stood before them, all her former courage gone, trembling and shivering in agony. "I do not care what they do to me!" she cried. She tore her lace mantilla from her shoulders and threw it on the floor. "I shall not leave this place. He is dead. Why should I go? He is dead. They have murdered him; he is dead."

"She is fainting," said Hope. Her voice was strained and hard.

To her brother she seemed to have grown suddenly much older, and he looked to her to tell him what to do.

"Take hold of her," she said. "She will fall." The woman sank back into the arms of the men, trembling and moaning feebly.

"Now carry her to the carriage," said Hope. "She has fainted; it is better; she does not know what has happened."

Clay, still bearing the body in his arms, pushed open the first door that stood ajar before him with his foot. It opened into the great banqueting hall of the palace, but he could not choose.

He had to consider now the safety of the living, whose lives were still in jeopardy.

The long table in the centre of the hall was laid with places for many people, for it had been prepared for the President and the President's guests, who were to have joined with him in celebrating the successful conclusion of the review. From outside the light of the sun, which was just sinking behind the mountains, shone dimly upon the silver on the board, on the glass and napery, and the massive gilt centre-pieces filled with great clusters of fresh flowers. It looked as though the servants had but just left the room. Even the candles had been lit in readiness, and as their flames wavered and smoked in the evening breeze they cast uncertain shadows on the walls and showed the stern faces of the soldier presidents frowning down on the crowded table from their gilded frames.

There was a great leather lounge stretching along one side of the hall, and Clay moved toward this quickly and laid his burden down. He was conscious that Hope was still following him. He straightened the limbs of the body and folded the arms across the breast and pressed his hand for an instant on the cold hands of his friend, and then whispering something between his lips, turned and walked hurriedly away.

Hope confronted him in the doorway. She was sobbing silently. "Must we leave him," she pleaded, "must we leave him--like this?"

From the garden there came the sound of hammers ringing on the iron hinges, and a great crash of noises as the gate fell back from its fastenings, and the mob rushed over the obstacles upon which it had fallen. It seemed as if their yells of exultation and anger must reach even the ears of the dead man.

"They are calling Mendoza," Clay whispered, "he must be with them. Come, we will have to run for our lives now."

But before he could guess what Hope was about to do, or could prevent her, she had slipped past him and picked up Stuart's sword that had fallen from his wrist to the floor, and laid it on the soldier's body, and closed his hands upon its hilt. She glanced quickly about her as though looking for something, and then with a sob of relief ran to the table, and sweeping it of an armful of its flowers, stepped swiftly back again to the lounge and heaped them upon it.

"Come, for God's sake, come!" Clay called to her in a whisper from the door.

Hope stood for an instant staring at the young Englishman as the candle-light flickered over his white face, and then, dropping on her knees, she pushed back the curly hair from about the boy's forehead and kissed him. Then, without turning to look again, she placed her hand in Clay's and he ran with her, dragging her behind him down the length of the hall, just as the mob entered it on the floor below them and filled the palace with their shouts of triumph.

As the sun sank lower its light fell more dimly on the lonely figure in the vast dining-hall, and as the gloom deepened there, the candles burned with greater brilliancy, and the faces of the portraits shone more clearly.

They seemed to be staring down less sternly now upon the white mortal face of the brother-in-arms who had just joined them.

One who had known him among his own people would have seen in the attitude and in the profile of the English soldier a likeness to his ancestors of the Crusades who lay carved in stone in the village church, with their faces turned to the sky, their faithful hounds waiting at their feet, and their hands pressed upward in prayer.

And when, a moment later, the half-crazed mob of men and boys swept into the great room, with Mendoza at their head, something of the pathos of the young Englishman's death in his foreign place of exile must have touched them, for they stopped appalled and startled, and pressed back upon their fellows, with eager whispers. The Spanish-American General strode boldly forward, but his eyes lowered before the calm, white face, and either because the lighted candles and the flowers awoke in him some memory of the great Church that had nursed him, or because the jagged holes in the soldier's tunic appealed to what was bravest in him, he crossed himself quickly, and then raising his hands slowly to his visor, lifted his hat and pointed with it to the door. And the mob, without once looking back at the rich treasure of silver on the table, pushed out before him, stepping softly, as though they had intruded on a shrine.

XIII

The President's travelling carriage was a double-seated diligence covered with heavy hoods and with places on the box for two men. Only one of the coachmen, the same man who had driven the State carriage from the review, had remained at the stables. As he knew the roads to Los Bocos, Clay ordered him up to the driver's seat, and MacWilliams climbed into the place beside him after first storing three rifles under the lap-robe.

Hope pulled open the leather curtains of the carriage and found Madame Alvarez where the men had laid her upon the cushions, weak and hysterical. The girl crept in beside her, and lifting her in her arms, rested the older woman's head against her shoulder, and soothed and comforted her with tenderness and sympathy.

Clay stopped with his foot in the stirrup and looked up anxiously at Langham who was already in the saddle.

"Is there no possible way of getting Hope out of this and back to the Palms?" he asked.

"No, it's too late. This is the only way now." Hope opened the leather curtains and looking out shook her head impatiently at Clay. "I wouldn't go now if there were another way," she said. "I couldn't leave her like this."

"You're delaying the game, Clay," cried Langham, warningly, as he stuck his spurs into his pony's side.

The people in the diligence lurched forward as the horses felt the lash of the whip and strained against the harness, and then plunged ahead at a gallop on their long race to the sea. As they sped through the gardens, the stables and the trees hid them from the sight of those in the palace, and the turf, upon which the driver had turned the horses for greater safety, deadened the sound of their flight.

They found the gates of the botanical gardens already opened, and Clay, in the street outside, beckoning them on. Without waiting for the others the two outriders galloped ahead to the first cross street, looked up and down its length, and then, in evident concern at what they saw in the distance, motioned the driver to greater speed, and crossing the street signalled him to follow them. At the next corner Clay flung himself off his pony, and throwing the bridle to Langham, ran ahead into the cross street on foot, and after a quick glance pointed down its length away from the heart of the city to the mountains.

The driver turned as Clay directed him, and when the man found that his face was fairly set toward the goal he lashed his horses recklessly through the narrow street, so that the murmur of the mob behind them grew perceptibly fainter at each leap forward.

The noise of the galloping hoofs brought women and children to the barred windows of the houses, but no men stepped into the road to stop their progress, and those few they met running in the direction of the palace hastened to get out of their way, and stood with their backs pressed against the walls of the narrow thoroughfare looking after them with wonder.

Even those who suspected their errand were helpless to detain them, for sooner than they could raise the hue and cry or formulate a plan of action, the carriage had passed and was disappearing in the distance, rocking from wheel to wheel like a ship in a gale. Two men who were so bold as to start to follow, stopped abruptly when they saw the outriders draw rein and turn in their saddles as though to await their coming.

Clay's mind was torn with doubts, and his nerves were drawn taut like the strings of a violin. Personal danger exhilarated him, but this chance of harm to others who were helpless, except for him, depressed his spirit with anxiety. He experienced in his own mind all the nervous fears of a thief who sees an officer in every passing citizen, and at one moment he warned the driver to move more circumspectly, and so avert suspicion, and the next urged him into more desperate bursts of speed. In his fancy every cross street threatened an ambush, and as he cantered now before and now behind the carriage, he wished that he was a multitude of men who could encompass it entirely and hide it.

But the solid streets soon gave way to open places, and low mud cabins, where the horses' hoofs beat on a sun-baked road, and where the inhabitants sat lazily before the door in the fading light, with no knowledge of the changes that the day had wrought in the city, and with only a moment's curious interest in the hooded carriage, and the grim, white-faced foreigners who guarded it.

Clay turned his pony into a trot at Langham's side. His face was pale and drawn.

As the danger of immediate pursuit and capture grew less, the carriage had slackened its pace, and for some minutes the outriders galloped on together side by side in silence. But the same thought was in the mind of each, and when Langham spoke it was as though he were continuing where he had but just been interrupted.

He laid his hand gently on Clay's arm. He did not turn his face toward him, and his eyes were still peering into the shadows before them. "Tell me?" he asked.

"He was coming up the stairs," Clay answered. He spoke in so low a voice that Langham had to lean from his saddle to hear him. "They were close behind; but when they saw her they stopped and refused to go farther. I called to him to come away, but he would not understand. They killed him before he really understood what they meant to do. He was dead almost before I reached him. He died in my arms." There was a long pause. "I wonder if he knows that?" Clay said.

Langham sat erect in the saddle again and drew a short breath. "I wish he could have known how he helped me," he whispered, "how much just knowing him helped me."

Clay bowed his head to the boy as though he were thanking him. "His was the gentlest soul I ever knew," he said.

"That's what I wanted to say," Langham answered. "We will let that be his epitaph," and touching his spur to his horse he galloped on ahead and left Clay riding alone.

Langham had proceeded for nearly a mile when he saw the forest opening before them, and at the sight he gave a shout of relief, but almost at the same instant he pulled his pony back on his haunches and whirling him about, sprang back to the carriage with a cry of warning.

"There are soldiers ahead of us," he cried. "Did you know it?" he demanded of the driver. "Did you lie to me? Turn back."

"He can't turn back," MacWilliams answered. "They have seen us. They are only the custom officers at the city limits. They know nothing. Go on." He reached forward and catching the reins dragged the horses down into a walk. Then he handed the reins back to the driver with a shake of the head.

"If you know these roads as well as you say you do, you want to keep us out of the way of soldiers," he said. "If we fall into a trap you'll be the first man shot on either side."

A sentry strolled lazily out into the road dragging his gun after him by the bayonet, and raised his hand for them to halt. His captain followed him from the post-house throwing away a cigarette as he came, and saluted MacWilliams on the box and bowed to the two riders in the background. In his right hand he held one of the long iron rods with which the collectors of the city's taxes were wont to pierce the bundles and packs, and even the carriage cushions of those who entered the city limits from the coast, and who might be suspected of smuggling.

"Whose carriage is this, and where is it going?" he asked.

As the speed of the diligence slackened, Hope put her head out of the curtains, and as she surveyed the soldier with apparent surprise, she turned to her brother.

"What does this mean?" she asked. "What are we waiting for?"

"We are going to the Hacienda of Senor Palacio," MacWilliams said, in answer to the officer. "The driver thinks that this is the road, but I say we should have taken the one to the right."

"No, this is the road to Senor Palacio's plantation," the officer answered, "but you cannot leave the city without a pass signed by General Mendoza. That is the order we received this morning. Have you such a pass?"

"Certainly not," Clay answered, warmly. "This is the carriage of an American, the president of the mines. His daughters are inside and on their way to visit the residence of Senor Palacio. They are foreigners--Americans. We are all foreigners, and we have a perfect right to leave the city when we choose. You can only stop us when we enter it."

The officer looked uncertainly from Clay to Hope and up at the driver on the box. His eyes fell upon the heavy brass mountings of the harness. They bore the arms of Olancho. He wheeled sharply and called to his men inside the post-house, and they stepped out from the veranda and spread themselves leisurely across the road.

"Ride him down, Clay," Langham muttered, in a whisper. The officer did not understand the words, but he saw Clay gather the reins tighter in his hands and he stepped back quickly to the safety of the porch, and from that ground of vantage smiled pleasantly.

"Pardon," he said, "there is no need for blows when one is rich enough to pay. A little something for myself and a drink for my brave fellows, and you can go where you please."

"Damned brigands," growled Langham, savagely.