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THE
WHITE MICE
BY
RICHARD HARDING DAVIS
ILLUSTRATED BY
_GEORGE GIBBS_
CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS
NEW YORK _1912_
COPYRIGHT, 1909,
BY CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS
[Illustration: "What does anything matter, when I know--that the end
is near!"]
ILLUSTRATIONS
"What does anything matter, when I know--that the
end is near!" _Frontispiece_
FACING PAGE
"_O-i-i-ga_, you Moso! Get a move on! _Pronto!_ If
you don't I'll do that myself" 20
"I hear the call of the White Mice," said Peter de
Peyster 30
Under the blow, the masked man staggered drunkenly 70
Shifting the reins to his left hand, Roddy let the
other fall upon his revolver 114
"Now I know why I came to Venezuela!" 144
On such a night, Leander swam the Hellespont 198
Her fingers traced the sign of the cross 294
THE WHITE MICE
I
Once upon a time a lion dropped his paw upon a mouse.
"Please let me live!" begged the mouse, "and some day I will do as
much for you."
"That is so funny," roared the king of beasts, "that we will release
you. We had no idea mice had a sense of humor."
And then, as you remember, the lion was caught in the net of the
hunter, and struggled, and fought, and struck blindly, until his
spirit and strength were broken, and he lay helpless and dying.
And the mouse, happening to pass that way, gnawed and nibbled at the
net, and gave the lion his life.
The morals are: that an appreciation of humor is a precious thing;
that God moves in a mysterious way, His wonders to perform, and that
you never can tell.
In regard to this fable it is urged that, according to the doctrine
of chances, it is extremely unlikely that at the very moment the lion
lay bound and helpless the very same mouse should pass by. But the
explanation is very simple and bromidic.
It is this--that this is a small world.
People who are stay-at-home bodies come to believe the whole world is
the village in which they live. People who are rolling-stones claim
that if you travel far enough and long enough the whole world becomes
as one village; that sooner or later you make friends with every one
in it; that the only difference between the stay-at-homes and the
gadabouts is that while the former answer local telephone calls, the
others receive picture postal-cards. There is a story that seems to
illustrate how small this world is. In fact, this is the story.
* * * * *
General Don Miguel Rojas, who as a young man was called the Lion of
Valencia, and who later had honorably served Venezuela as Minister of
Foreign Affairs, as Secretary of War, as Minister to the Court of St.
James and to the Republic of France, having reached the age of sixty
found himself in a dungeon-cell underneath the fortress in the harbor
of Porto Cabello. He had been there two years. The dungeon was dark
and very damp, and at high-tide the waters of the harbor oozed through
the pores of the limestone walls. The air was the air of a
receiving-vault, and held the odor of a fisherman's creel.
General Rojas sat huddled upon a canvas cot, with a blanket about his
throat and a blanket about his knees, reading by the light of a candle
the story of Don Quixote. Sometimes a drop of water fell upon the
candle and it sputtered, and its light was nearly lost in the
darkness. Sometimes so many drops gathered upon the white head of the
Lion of Valencia that he sputtered, too, and coughed so violently
that, in agony, he beat with feeble hands upon his breast. And _his_
light, also, nearly escaped into the darkness.
* * * * *
On the other side of the world, four young Americans, with legs
crossed and without their shoes, sat on the mats of the tea-house of
the Hundred and One Steps. On their sun-tanned faces was the glare of
Yokohama Bay, in their eyes the light of youth, of intelligent
interest, of adventure. In the hand of each was a tiny cup of acrid
tea. Three of them were under thirty, and each wore the suit of silk
pongee that in eighteen hours C. Tom, or Little Ah Sing, the Chinese
King, fits to any figure, and which in the Far East is the badge of
the tourist tribe. Of the three, one was Rodman Forrester. His
father, besides being pointed out as the parent of "Roddy" Forrester,
the one-time celebrated Yale pitcher, was himself not unfavorably
known to many governments as a constructor of sky-scrapers,
breakwaters, bridges, wharves and light-houses, which latter he
planted on slippery rocks along inaccessible coast-lines. Among his
fellow Captains of Industry he was known as the Forrester Construction
Company, or, for short, the "F. C. C." Under that alias Mr. Forrester
was now trying to sell to the Japanese three light-houses, to
illuminate the Inner Sea between Kobe and Shimoneseki. To hasten the
sale he had shipped "Roddy" straight from the machine-shops to
Yokohama.
Three years before, when Roddy left Yale, his father ordered him
abroad to improve his mind by travel, and to inspect certain
light-houses and breakwaters on both shores of the English Channel.
While crossing from Dover to Calais on his way to Paris, Roddy made a
very superficial survey of the light-houses and reported that, so far
as he could see by daylight, they still were on the job. His father,
who had his own breezy sense of humor, cancelled Roddy's letter of
credit, cabled him home, and put him to work in the machine-shop.
There the manager reported that, except that he had shown himself a
good "mixer," and had organized picnics for the benefit societies, and
a base-ball team, he had not earned his fifteen dollars a week.
When Roddy was called before him, his father said:
"It is wrong that your rare talents as a 'mixer' should be wasted in
front of a turning-lathe. Callahan tells me you can talk your way
through boiler-plate, so I am going to give you a chance to talk the
Japs into giving us a contract. But, remember this, Roddy," his father
continued sententiously, "the Japs are the Jews of the present. Be
polite, but don't appear _too_ anxious. If you do, they will beat you
down in the price."
Perhaps this parting injunction explains why, from the time Roddy
first burst upon the Land of the Rising Sun, he had devoted himself
entirely to the Yokohama tea-houses and the base-ball grounds of the
American Naval Hospital. He was trying, he said, not to appear too
anxious. He hoped father would be pleased.
With Roddy to Japan, as a companion, friend and fellow-tourist, came
Peter de Peyster, who hailed from the banks of the Hudson, and of what
Roddy called "one of our ancient poltroon families." At Yale, although
he had been two classes in advance of Roddy, the two had been
roommates, and such firm friends that they contradicted each other
without ceasing. Having quarrelled through two years of college life,
they were on terms of such perfect understanding as to be inseparable.
The third youth was the "Orchid Hunter." His father manufactured the
beer that, so Roddy said, had made his home town bilious. He was not
really an orchid hunter, but on his journeyings around the globe he
had become so ashamed of telling people he had no other business than
to spend his father's money that he had decided to say he was
collecting orchids.
"It shows imagination," he explained, "and I have spent enough money
on orchids on Fifth Avenue to make good."
The fourth youth in the group wore the uniform and insignia of a
Lieutenant of the United States Navy. His name was Perry, and, looking
down from the toy balcony of the tea-house, clinging like a
bird's-nest to the face of the rock, they could see his battle-ship on
the berth. It was Perry who had convoyed them to O Kin San and her
delectable tea-house, and it was Perry who was talking shop.
"But the most important member of the ship's company on a submarine,"
said the sailor-man, "doesn't draw any pay at all, and he has no
rating. He is a mouse."
"He's a _what_?" demanded the Orchid Hunter. He had been patriotically
celebrating the arrival of the American Squadron. During tiffin, the
sight of the white uniforms in the hotel dining-room had increased his
patriotism; and after tiffin the departure of the Pacific Mail,
carrying to the Golden Gate so many "good fellows," further aroused
it. Until the night before, in the billiard-room, he had never met any
of the good fellows; but the thought that he might never see them
again now depressed him. And the tea he was drinking neither cheered
nor inebriated. So when the Orchid Hunter spoke he showed a touch of
temper.
"Don't talk sea slang to me," he commanded; "when you say he is a
mouse, what do you mean by a mouse?"
"I mean a mouse," said the Lieutenant, "a white mouse with pink eyes.
He bunks in the engine-room, and when he smells sulphuric gas escaping
anywhere he squeals; and the chief finds the leak, and the ship isn't
blown up. Sometimes, one little, white mouse will save the lives of a
dozen bluejackets."
Roddy and Peter de Peyster nodded appreciatively.
"Mos' extr'd'n'ry!" said the Orchid Hunter. "Mos' sad, too. I will
now drink to the mouse. The moral of the story is," he pointed out,
"that everybody, no matter how impecunious, can help; even you fellows
could help. So could I."
His voice rose in sudden excitement. "I will now," he cried, "organize
the Society of the Order of the White Mice. The object of the society
is to save everybody's life. Don't tell me," he objected scornfully,
"that you fellows will let a little white mice save twelve hundred
bluejackets, an' you sit there an' grin. You mus' all be a White Mice.
You mus' all save somebody's life. An'--then--then we give ourself a
dinner."
"And medals!" suggested Peter de Peyster.
The Orchid Hunter frowned. He regarded the amendment with suspicion.
"Is't th' intention of the Hon'ble Member from N'York," he asked,
"that _each_ of us gets a medal, or just th' one that does th'
saving?"
"Just one," said Peter de Peyster.
"No, we all get 'em," protested Roddy. "Each time!"
"Th' 'men'ment to th' 'men'ment is carried," announced the Orchid
Hunter. He untwisted his legs and clapped his hands. The paper walls
slid apart, the little Nezans, giggling, bowing, ironing out their
knees with open palms, came tripping and stumbling to obey.
"Take away the tea!" shouted the Orchid Hunter. "It makes me nervous.
Bring us fizzy-water, in larges' size, cold, expensive bottles. And
now, you fellows," proclaimed the Orchid Hunter, "I'm goin' into
secret session and initiate you into Yokohama Chapter, Secret Order of
White Mice. And--I will be Mos' Exalted Secret White Mouse."
When he returned to the ship Perry told the wardroom about it and
laughed, and the wardroom laughed, and that night at the Grand Hotel,
while the Japanese band played "Give My Regards to Broadway," which
Peter de Peyster told them was the American national anthem, the White
Mice gave their first annual dinner. For, as the Orchid Hunter pointed
out, in order to save life, one must sustain it.
And Louis Eppinger himself designed that dinner, and the Paymaster,
and Perry's brother-officers, who were honored guests, still speak of
it with awe; and the next week's _Box of Curios_ said of it
editorially: "And while our little Yokohama police know much of
ju-jitsu, they found that they had still something to learn of the
short jab to the jaw and the quick getaway."
Indeed, throughout, it was a most successful dinner.
And just to show how small this world is, and that "God moves in a
mysterious way, His wonders to perform," at three o'clock that
morning, when the dinner-party in rickshaws were rolling down the
Bund, singing "We're Little White Mice Who Have Gone Astray," their
voices carried across the Pacific, across the Cordilleras and the
Caribbean Sea; and an old man in his cell, tossing and shivering with
fever, smiled and sank to sleep; for in his dreams he had heard the
scampering feet of the White Mice, and he had seen the gates of his
prison-cell roll open.
* * * * *
The Forrester Construction Company did not get the contract to build
the three light-houses. The Japanese preferred a light-house made by
an English firm. They said it was cheaper. It _was_ cheaper, because
they bought the working plans from a draughtsman the English firm had
discharged for drunkenness, and, by causing the revolving light to
wink once instead of twice, dodged their own patent laws.
Mr. Forrester agreed with the English firm that the Japanese were "a
wonderful little people," and then looked about for some one
individual he could blame. Finding no one else, he blamed Roddy. The
interview took place on the twenty-seventh story of the Forrester
Building, in a room that overlooked the Brooklyn Bridge.
"You didn't fall down on the job," the fond parent was carefully
explaining, "because you never were _on_ the job. You didn't even
_start_. It was thoughtful of you to bring back kimonos to mother and
the girls. But the one you brought me does not entirely compensate me
for the ninety thousand dollars you didn't bring back. I would _like_
my friends to see me in a kimono with silk storks and purple wistarias
down the front, but I feel I cannot afford to pay ninety thousand
dollars for a bathrobe.
"Nor do I find," continued the irate parent coldly, "that the honor
you did the company by disguising yourself as a stoker and helping the
base-ball team of the _Louisiana_ to win the pennant of the Asiatic
Squadron, altogether reconciles us to the loss of a government
contract. I have paid a good deal to have you taught mechanical
engineering, and I should like to know how soon you expect to give me
the interest on my money."
Roddy grinned sheepishly, and said he would begin at once, by taking
his father out to lunch.
"Good!" said Forrester, Senior. "But before we go, Roddy, I want you
to look over there to the Brooklyn side. Do you see pier number
eleven--just south of the bridge? Yes? Then do you see a white steamer
taking on supplies?"
Roddy, delighted at the change of subject, nodded.
"That ship," continued his father, "is sailing to Venezuela, where we
have a concession from the government to build breakwaters and buoy
the harbors and put up light-houses. We have been working there for
two years and we've spent about two million dollars. And some day we
hope to get our money. Sometimes," continued Mr. Forrester, "it is
necessary to throw good money after bad. That is what we are doing in
Venezuela."
"I don't understand," interrupted Roddy with polite interest.
"You are not expected to," said his father. "If you will kindly
condescend to hold down the jobs I give you, you can safely leave the
high finance of the company to your father."
"Quite so," said Roddy hastily. "Where shall we go to lunch?"
As though he had not heard him, Forrester, Senior, continued
relentlessly: "To-morrow," he said, "you are sailing on that ship for
Porto Cabello; we have just started a light-house at Porto Cabello,
and are buoying the harbor. You are going for the F. C. C. You are an
inspector."
Roddy groaned and sank into a chair.
"Go on," he commanded, "break it to me quick! _What_ do I inspect?"
"You sit in the sun," said Mr. Forrester, "with a pencil, and every
time our men empty a bag of cement into the ocean you make a mark. At
the same time, if you are not an utter idiot and completely blind, you
can't help but see how a light-house is set up. The company is having
trouble in Venezuela, trouble in collecting its money. You might as
well know that, because everybody in Venezuela will tell you so. But
that's all you need to know. The other men working for the company
down there will think, because you are my son, that you know more
about what I'm doing in Venezuela than they do. Now, understand, you
don't know anything, and I want you to say so. I want you to stick to
your own job, and not mix up in anything that doesn't concern you.
There will be nothing to distract you. McKildrick writes me that in
Porto Cabello there are no tea-houses, no roads for automobiles, and,
except for the fire-flies, all the white lights go out at nine
o'clock.
"Now, Roddy," concluded Mr. Forrester warningly, "this is your chance,
and it is the last chance for dinner in the dining-car, for you. If
you fail the company, and by the company I mean myself, _this_ time,
you can ask Fred Sterry for a job on the waiters' nine at Palm Beach."
* * * * *
Like all the other great captains, Mr. Forrester succeeded through the
work of his lieutenants. For him, in every part of the world, more
especially in those parts of it in which the white man was but just
feeling his way, they were at work.
In Siberia, in British East Africa, in Upper Burmah, engineers of the
Forrester Construction Company had tamed, shackled and bridged great
rivers. In the Soudan they had thrown up ramparts against the Nile.
Along the coasts of South America they had cast the rays of the
Forrester revolving light upon the face of the waters of both the
South Atlantic and the Pacific.
They were of all ages, from the boys who had never before looked
through a transit except across the college campus, to sun-tanned,
fever-haunted veterans who, for many years, had fought Nature where
she was most stubborn, petulant and cruel. They had seen a tidal-wave
crumple up a breakwater which had cost them a half-year of labor, and
slide it into the ocean. They had seen swollen rivers, drunk with the
rains, trip bridges by the ankles and toss them on the banks, twisted
and sprawling; they had seen a tropical hurricane overturn a
half-finished light-house as gayly as a summer breeze upsets a
rocking-chair; they had fought with wild beasts, they had fought with
wild men, with Soudanese of the Desert, with Federated Sons of Labor,
with Yaqui Indians, and they had seen cholera, sleeping-sickness and
the white man's gin turn their compounds into pest-camps and
crematories.
Of these things Mr. Forrester, in the twenty-seven-story Forrester
sky-scraper, where gray-coated special policemen and elevator-starters
touched their caps to him, had seen nothing. He regarded these
misadventures by flood and field only as obstacles to his carrying out
in the time stipulated a business contract. He accepted them patiently
as he would a strike of the workmen on the apartment-house his firm
was building on Fifty-ninth Street.
Sometimes, in order to better show the progress they were making, his
engineers sent him from strange lands photographs of their work. At
these, for a moment, he would glance curiously, at the pictures of
naked, dark-skinned coolies in turbans, of elephants dragging iron
girders, _his_ iron girders; and perhaps he would wonder if the man
in the muddy boots and the heavy sun hat was McKenzie. His interest
went no further than that; his imagination was not stirred.
Sometimes McKenzie returned and, in evening dress, dined with him at
his up-town club, or at a fashionable restaurant, where the senses of
the engineer were stifled by the steam heat, the music and the scent
of flowers; where, through a joyous mist of red candle-shades and
golden champagne, he once more looked upon women of his own color. It
was not under such conditions that Mr. Forrester could expect to know
the real McKenzie. This was not the McKenzie who, two months before,
was fighting death on a diet of fruit salts, and who, against the sun,
wore a bath-towel down his spinal column. On such occasions Mr.
Forrester wanted to know if, with native labor costing but a few yards
of cotton and a bowl of rice, the new mechanical rivet-drivers were
not an extravagance. How, he would ask, did salt water and a sweating
temperature of one hundred and five degrees act upon the new anti-rust
paint? That was what he wanted to know.
Once one of his young lieutenants, inspired by a marvellous dinner,
called to him across the table: "You remember, sir, that light-house
we put up in the Persian Gulf? The Consul at Aden told me, this last
trip, that before that light was there the wrecks on the coast
averaged fifteen a year and the deaths from drowning over a hundred.
You will be glad to hear that since your light went up, three years
ago, there have been only two wrecks and no deaths."
Mr. Forrester nodded gravely.
"I remember," he said. "That was the time we made the mistake of
sending cement through the Canal instead of around the Cape, and the
tolls cost us five thousand dollars."
It was not that Mr. Forrester weighed the loss of the five thousand
dollars against a credit of lives saved. It was rather that he was not
in the life-saving business. Like all his brother captains, he was,
in a magnificent way, mechanically charitable. For institutions that
did make it a business to save life he wrote large checks. But he
never mixed charity and business. In what he was doing in the world he
either was unable to see, or was not interested in seeing, what was
human, dramatic, picturesque. When he forced himself to rest from his
labor, his relaxation was the reading of novels of romance, of
adventure--novels that told of strange places and strange peoples.
Between the after-dinner hour and bedtime, or while his yacht picked
her way up the Sound, these tales filled him with surprise. Often he
would exclaim admiringly: "I don't see how these fellows think up such
things."
He did not know that, in his own business, there were melodramas,
romances which made those of the fiction-writers ridiculous.
And so, when young Sam Caldwell, the third vice-president, told Mr.
Forrester that if the company hoped to obtain the money it had sunk
in Venezuela it must finance a revolution, Mr. Forrester, without
question, consented to the expense, and put it down under "Political."
Had Sam Caldwell shown him that what was needed was a construction-raft
or a half-dozen giant steam-shovels, he would have furnished the money
as readily and with as little curiosity.
Sam Caldwell, the third vice-president, was a very smart young man.
Every one, even men much older than he, said as much, and no one was
more sure of it than was Sam Caldwell himself. His vanity on that
point was, indeed, his most prepossessing human quality.
He was very proud of his freedom from those weak scruples that
prevented rival business men from underbidding the F. C. C. He
congratulated himself on the fact that at thirty-four he was much more
of a cynic than men of sixty. He held no illusions, and he rejoiced
in a sense of superiority over those of his own class in college, who,
in matters of business, were still hampered by old-time traditions.
If in any foreign country the work of the F. C. C. was halted by
politicians, it was always Sam Caldwell who was sent across the sea to
confer with them. He could quote you the market-price on a Russian
grand-duke, or a Portuguese colonial governor, as accurately as he
could that of a Tammany sachem. His was the non-publicity department.
People who did not like him called him Mr. Forrester's jackal. When
the lawyers of the company had studied how they could evade the law on
corporations, and had shown how the officers of the F. C. C. could do
a certain thing and still keep out of jail, Sam Caldwell was the man
who did that thing.
He had been to Venezuela "to look over the ground," and he had
reported that President Alvarez must go, and that some one who would
be friendly to the F. C. C. must be put in his place. That was all Mr.
Forrester knew, or cared to know. With the delay in Venezuela he was
impatient. He wanted to close up that business and move his fleet of
tenders, dredges and rafts to another coast. So, as was the official
routine, he turned over the matter to Sam Caldwell, to settle it in
Sam Caldwell's own way.
Two weeks after his talk with his father, Roddy, ignorant of Mr.
Caldwell's intentions, was in Venezuela, sitting on the edge of a
construction-raft, dangling his rubber boots in the ocean, and
watching a steel skeleton creep up from a coral reef into a blazing,
burning sky. At intervals he would wake to remove his cigarette, and
shout fiercely: "_O-i-i-ga_, you Moso! Get a move on! _Pronto!_ If you
don't I'll do that myself."
Every ten minutes El Senor Roddy had made the same threat, and the
workmen, once hopeful that he would carry it into effect, had grown
despondent.
* * * * *
In the mind of Peter de Peyster there was no doubt that, unless
something was done, and at once, the Order of the White Mice would
cease to exist. The call of Gain, of Duty, of Pleasure had scattered
the charter members to distant corners of the world. Their dues were
unpaid, the pages of the Golden Book of Record were blank. Without the
necessary quorum of two there could be no meetings, without meetings
there could be no dinners, and, incidentally, over all the world
people continued to die, and the White Mice were doing nothing to
prevent it. Peter de Peyster, mindful of his oath, of his duty as the
Most Secret Secretary and High Historian of the Order, shot arrows in
the air in the form of irate postal-cards. He charged all White Mice
to instantly report to the Historian the names of those persons whom,
up to date, they had saved from death.
[Illustration: "_O-i-i-ga_, you Moso! Get a move on! _Pronto!_ If you
don't I'll do that myself."]
From the battle-ship _Louisiana_, Perry wrote briefly:
"Beg to report during gale off Finisterre, went to rescue of
man overboard. Man overboard proved to be Reagan, gunner's
mate, first class, holding long-distance championship for
swimming and two medals for saving life. After I sank the
third time, Reagan got me by the hair and towed me to the
ship. Who gets the assist?"
From Raffles' Hotel, Singapore, the Orchid Hunter cabled:
"Have saved own valuable life by refusing any longer to
drink Father's beer. Give everybody medal."
From Porto Cabello, Venezuela, Roddy wrote:
"I have saved lives of fifty Jamaica coolies daily by not
carrying an axe. If you want to save my life from suicide,
sunstroke and sleeping-sickness--which attacks me with
special virulence immediately after lunch--come by next
steamer."
A week later, Peter de Peyster took the Red D boat south, and after
touching at Porto Rico and at the Island of Curacao, swept into Porto
Cabello and into the arms of his friend.
On the wharf, after the shouts of welcome had died away, Roddy
inquired anxiously: "As you made the harbor, Peter, did you notice
any red and black buoys? Those are _my_ buoys. _I_ put them
there--_myself_. And I laid out that entire channel you came in
by, all by myself, too!"
Much time had passed since the two friends had been able to insult
each other face to face.
"Roddy," coldly declared Peter, "if I thought _you_ had charted that
channel I'd go home on foot, by land."
"Do you mean you think I can't plant deep-sea buoys?" demanded Roddy.
"You can't plant potatoes!" said Peter. "If you had to set up
lamp-posts, with the street names on them, along Broadway, you would
put the ones marked Union Square in Columbus Circle."
"I want you to know," shouted Roddy, "that my buoys are the talk of
this port. These people are just crazy about my buoys--especially the
red buoys. If you didn't come to Venezuela to see my buoys, why did
you come? I will plant a buoy for you to-morrow!" challenged Roddy. "I
will show you!"
"You will _have_ to show me," said Peter.
* * * * *
Peter had been a week in Porto Cabello, and, in keeping Roddy at work,
had immensely enjoyed himself. Each morning, in the company's gasoline
launch, the two friends went put-put-putting outside the harbor, where
Roddy made soundings for his buoys, and Peter lolled in the stern and
fished. His special pleasure was in trying to haul man-eating sharks
into the launch at the moment Roddy was leaning over the gunwale,
taking a sounding.
One evening at sunset, on their return trip, as they were under the
shadow of the fortress, the engine of the launch broke down. While the
black man from Trinidad was diagnosing the trouble, Peter was
endeavoring to interest Roddy in the quaint little Dutch Island of
Curacao that lay one hundred miles to the east of them. He chose to
talk of Curacao because the ship that carried him from the States had
touched there, while the ship that brought Roddy south had not. This
fact irritated Roddy, so Peter naturally selected the moment when the
launch had broken down and Roddy was both hungry and peevish to talk
of Curacao.
"Think of your never having seen Curacao!" he sighed. "Some day you
certainly must visit it. With a sea as flat as this is to-night you
could make the run in the launch in twelve hours. It is a place you
should see."
"That is so like you," exclaimed Roddy indignantly. "I have been here
four months, and you have been here a week, and you try to tell _me_
about Curacao! It is the place where curacao and revolutionists come
from. All the exiles from Venezuela wait over there until there is a
revolution over here, and then they come across. You can't tell _me_
anything about Curacao. _I_ don't have to _go_ to a place to know
about it."
"I'll bet," challenged Peter, "you don't know about the mother and the
two daughters who were exiled from Venezuela and live in Curacao, and
who look over here every night at sunset?"
Roddy laughed scornfully. "Why, that is the first thing they tell
you," he cried; "the purser points them out from the ship, and tells
you----"
"Tells _you_, yes," cried Peter triumphantly, "but I _saw_ them. As we
left the harbor they were standing on the cliff--three women in
white--looking toward Venezuela. They told me the father of the two
girls is in prison here. He was----"
"_Told_ you, yes," mimicked Roddy, "told you he was in prison. I have
_seen_ him in prison. There is the prison."
Roddy pointed at the flat, yellow fortress that rose above them.
Behind the tiny promontory on which the fortress crouched was the
town, separated from it by a stretch of water so narrow that a
golf-player, using the quay of the custom-house for a tee, could have
driven a ball against the prison wall.
Daily, from the town, Peter had looked across the narrow harbor toward
the level stretch of limestone rock that led to the prison gates, and
had seen the petty criminals, in chains, splash through the pools left
by the falling tide, had watched each pick up a cask of fresh water,
and, guarded by the barefooted, red-capped soldiers, drag his chains
back to the prison. Now, only the boat's-length from them, he saw the
sheer face of the fortress, where it slipped to depths unknown into
the sea. It impressed him most unpleasantly. It had the look less of a
fortress than of a neglected tomb. Its front was broken by wind and
waves, its surface, blotched and mildewed, white with crusted salt,
hideous with an eruption of dead barnacles. As each wave lifted and
retreated, leaving the porous wall dripping like a sponge, it
disturbed countless crabs, rock scorpions and creeping, leech-like
things that ran blindly into the holes in the limestone; and, at the
water-line, the sea-weed, licking hungrily at the wall, rose and fell,
the great arms twisting and coiling like the tentacles of many
devilfish.
Distaste at what he saw, or the fever that at sunset drives wise
Venezuelans behind closed shutters, caused Peter to shiver slightly.
For some moments, with grave faces and in silence, the two young men
sat motionless, the mind of each trying to conceive what life must be
behind those rusted bars and moss-grown walls.
"Somewhere, buried in there," said Roddy, "is General Rojas, the Lion
of Valencia, a man," he added sententiously, "beloved by the people.
He has held all the cabinet positions, and been ambassador in Europe,
and Alvarez is more afraid of him than of any other man in Venezuela.
And why? For the simple reason that he is good. When the people found
out what a blackguard Alvarez is they begged Rojas to run for
President against him, and Rojas promised that if, at the next
election, the people still desired it, he would do as they wished.
That night Alvarez hauled him out of bed and put him in there. He has
been there two years. There _are_ healthy prisons, but Alvarez put
Rojas in this one, hoping it would kill him. He is afraid to murder
him openly, because the people love him. When I first came here I went
through the fortress with Vicenti, the prison doctor, on a sort of
Seeing-Porto-Cabello trip. He pointed out Rojas to me through the
bars, same as you would point out a monument to a dead man. Rojas was
sitting at a table, writing, wrapped in a shawl. The cell was lit by a
candle, and I give you my word, although it was blazing hot outside,
the place was as damp as a refrigerator. When we raised our lanterns
he stood up, and I got a good look at him. He is a thin, frail little
man with white hair and big, sad eyes, with a terribly lonely look in
them. At least I thought so; and I felt so ashamed at staring at him
that I bowed and salaamed to him through the bars, and he gave me the
most splendid bow, just as though he were still an ambassador and I a
visiting prince. The doctor had studied medicine in New York, so
probably he talked to me a little more freely than he should. He says
he warned the commandant of the fortress that unless Rojas is moved to
the upper tier of cells, above the water-line, he will die in six
months. And the commandant told him not to meddle in affairs of state,
that his orders from the President were that Rojas 'must never again
feel the heat of the sun.'"
Peter de Peyster exclaimed profanely. "Are there no men in this
country?" he growled. "Why don't his friends get him out?"
"They'd have to get themselves out first," explained Roddy. "Alvarez
made a clean sweep of it, even of his wife and his two daughters, the
women you saw. He exiled them, and they went to Curacao. They have
plenty of money, and they _could_ have lived in Paris or London. He
has been minister in both places, and has many friends over there, but
even though they cannot see him or communicate with him, they settled
down in Curacao so that they might be near him.
"The night his wife was ordered out of the country she was allowed to
say good-by to him in the fortress, and there she arranged that every
night at sunset she and her daughters would look toward Port Cabello,
and he would look toward Curacao. The women bought a villa on the
cliff, to the left of the harbor of Willemstad as you enter, and the
people, the Dutch and the Spaniards and negroes, all know the story,
and when they see the three women on the cliff at sunset it is like
the Angelus ringing, and, they say, the people pray that the women may
see him again."
For a long time Peter de Peyster sat scowling at the prison, and Roddy
did not speak, for it is not possible to room with another man through
two years of college life and not know something of his moods.
Then Peter leaned toward Roddy and stared into his face. His voice
carried the suggestion of a challenge.
"I hear something!" he whispered.
Whether his friend spoke in metaphor or stated a fact, Roddy could not
determine. He looked at him questioningly, and raised his head to
listen. Save for the whisper of the waves against the base of the
fortress, there was no sound.
"What?" asked Roddy.
"I hear the call of the White Mice," said Peter de Peyster.
There was a long silence. Then Roddy laughed softly, his eyes half
closed; the muscles around the lower jaw drew tight.
Often before Peter had seen the look in his face, notably on a
memorable afternoon when Roddy went to the bat, with three men on
base, two runs needed to win the championship and twenty thousand
shrieking people trying to break his nerve.
"I will go as far as you like," said Roddy.
* * * * *
Porto Cabello is laid out within the four boundaries of a square.
The boundary on the east and the boundary on the north of the square
meet at a point that juts into the harbor. The wharves and the
custom-house, looking toward the promontory on which stands the
fortress prison, form the eastern side of the square, and along the
northern edge are the Aquatic Club, with its veranda over the water,
the hotel, with its bath-rooms underneath the water, and farther along
the harbor front houses set in gardens. As his work was in the harbor,
Roddy had rented one of these houses. It was discreetly hidden by
mango-trees and palmetto, and in the rear of the garden, steps cut in
the living rock led down into the water. In a semicircle beyond these
steps was a fence of bamboo stout enough to protect a bather from the
harbor sharks and to serve as a breakwater for the launch.
[Illustration: "I hear the call of the White Mice," said Peter de
Peyster.]
"When I rented this house," said Roddy, "I thought I took it because I
could eat mangoes while I was in bathing and up to my ears in water,
which is the only way you can eat a mango and keep your self-respect.
But I see now that Providence sent me here because we can steal away
in the launch without any one knowing it."
"If you can move that launch its own length without the whole town
knowing it," commented Peter, "you will have to chloroform it. It
barks like a machine gun."
"My idea was," explained Roddy, "that we would row to the fortress.
After we get the General on board, the more it sounds like a machine
gun the better."
Since their return in the launch, and during dinner, which had been
served in the tiny _patio_ under the stars, the White Mice had been
discussing ways and means. A hundred plans had been proposed,
criticised, rejected; but by one in the morning, when the candles were
guttering in the harbor breeze and the Scotch whiskey had shrunk
several inches, the conspirators found themselves agreed. They had
decided they could do nothing until they knew in which cell the
General was imprisoned, and especially the position of his window in
that cell that looked out upon the harbor; that, with the aid of the
launch, the rescue must be made from the water, and that the rescuers
must work from the outside. To get at Rojas from the inside it would
be necessary to take into their confidence some one of the prison
officials, and there was no one they dared to trust. Had it been a
question of money, Roddy pointed out, the friends of Rojas would
already have set him free. That they had failed to do so proved, not
that the prison officials were incorruptible, but that their fear of
the wrath of Alvarez was greater than their cupidity.
"There are several reasons why we should not attempt to bribe any
one," said Roddy, "and the best one is the same reason the man gave
for not playing poker. To-morrow I will introduce you to Vicenti, the
prison doctor, and we'll ask him to take us over the prison, and count
the cells, and try to mark the one in which we see Rojas. Perhaps we'd
better have the doctor in to dinner. He likes to tell you what a devil
of a fellow he was in New York, and you must pretend to believe he
was. We might also have the captain of the port, and get him to give
us permission to take the launch out at night. This port is still
under martial law, and after the sunset gun no boat may move about the
harbor. Then we must have some harpoons made and get out that
headlight, and spear eels."
"You couldn't spear an eel," objected Peter, "and if you could I
wouldn't eat it."
"You don't have to eat it!" explained Roddy; "the eels are only an
excuse. We want to get the sentries used to seeing us flashing around
the harbor at night. If we went out there without some excuse, and
without permission, exploding like a barrel of fire-crackers, they'd
sink us. So we must say we are out spearing eels."
The next morning Roddy showed a blacksmith how to hammer out tridents
for spearing eels, and that night those people who lived along the
harbor front were kept awake by quick-fire explosions, and the glare
in their windows of a shifting search-light. But at the end of the
week the launch of the Gringos, as it darted noisily in and out of the
harbor, and carelessly flashed its search-light on the walls of the
fortress, came to be regarded less as a nuisance than a blessing. For
with noble self-sacrifice the harbor eels lent themselves to the
deception. By hundreds they swarmed in front of the dazzling
headlight; by dozens they impaled themselves upon the tines of the
pitchforks. So expert did Roddy and Peter become in harpooning, that
soon they were able each morning to send to the captain of the port,
to the commandant, to the prison doctor, to every citizen who objected
to having his sleep punctuated, a basket of eels. It was noticed that
at intervals the engine of the launch would not act properly, and the
gringos were seen propelling the boat with oars. Also, the light
often went out, leaving them in darkness. They spoke freely of these
accidents with bitter annoyance, and people sympathized with them.
One night, when they were seated plotting in the _patio_, Roddy was
overwhelmed with sudden misgivings.
"Wouldn't it be awful," he cried, "if, after we have cut the bars and
shown him the rope ladder and the launch, he refuses to come with us!"
"Is that _all_ that's worrying you?" asked Peter.
"How is he to know?" persisted Roddy, "that we are not paid by
Alvarez, that we aren't leading him on to escape so that the sentries
can have an excuse to shoot him. That has been done before. It is an
old trick, like killing a man in his cell and giving out that he
committed suicide. The first thing Rojas will ask us is, who sends us,
and where are our credentials."
"I guess he will take his chance," said Peter. "He'll see we are not
Venezuelans."
"That is the very thing that will make him refuse," protested Roddy.
"Why should he trust himself to strangers--to gringos? No, I tell you,
we can't go on without credentials." He lowered his voice and glanced
suspiciously into the dark corners of the _patio_. "And the only
people who can give them to us," he added, tapping impressively upon
the table, "live in Curacao."
With sudden enthusiasm Peter de Peyster sat upright.
"I am on in that scene," he protested.
"I thought of it first," said Roddy.
"We will toss," compromised Peter. "The head of Bolivar, you go. The
arms of Venezuela, I go, and you stay here and catch eels."
The silver peso rang upon the table, and Roddy exclaimed jubilantly:
"Heads! I go!" he cried. But the effort of Peter to show he was not
disappointed was so unconvincing that Roddy instantly relented.
"We had better both go!" he amended. "Your headwork is better than
mine, so you come, too. And if you give me the right signals, I'll try
to put the ball where you can reach it."
As though in his eagerness he would set forth on the instant, Roddy
sprang to his feet and stood smiling down at Peter, his face lit with
pleasurable excitement. Then suddenly his expression grew thoughtful.
"Peter," he inquired, "how old do you think the daughters are?"
II
The next day Roddy and Peter sailed for Willemstad, the chief port and
the capital of the tiny island colony of Holland. In twelve hours they
had made their land-fall and were entering the harbor mouth. The sun
was just rising, and as its rays touched the cliff from which, twelve
hours later, Senora Rojas and her daughters would look toward Porto
Cabello, they felt a thrill of possible adventure.
Roddy knew that, as a refuge for revolutionists exiled from Venezuela,
Willemstad was policed with secret agents of Alvarez, and he knew that
were these spies to learn that during his visit either he or Peter had
called upon the family of Rojas they would be reported to Caracas as
"suspect," and the chance of their saving the Lion of Valencia would
be at an end. So it became them to be careful.
Before leaving Porto Cabello Roddy had told McKildrick, the foreman of
the Construction Company's work there, that some boxes of new
machinery and supplies for his launch had gone astray and that he
wished permission to cross to Curacao to look them up. McKildrick
believed the missing boxes were only an excuse for a holiday, but he
was not anxious to assert his authority over the son and heir of the
F. C. C., and so gave Roddy his leave of absence. And at the wharf at
Porto Cabello, while waiting for the ship to weigh anchor, Roddy had
complained to the custom-house officials at having to cross to
Curacao. He gave them the same reason for the trip, and said it was
most annoying.
In order to be consistent, when, on landing at Willemstad, three
soiled individuals approached Roddy and introduced themselves as
guides, he told them the same story. He was looking for boxes of
machinery invoiced for Porto Cabello; he feared they had been carried
on to La Guayra or dropped at Willemstad. Could they direct him to the
office of the steamship line and to the American Consul? One of the
soiled persons led him across the quay to the office of the agent, and
while Roddy repeated his complaint, listened so eagerly that to both
Peter and Roddy it was quite evident the business of the guide was not
to disclose Curacao to strangers, but to learn what brought strangers
to Curacao. The agent was only too delighted to serve the son of one
who in money meant so much to the line. For an hour he searched his
books, his warehouse and the quays. But, naturally, the search was
unsuccessful, and with most genuine apologies Roddy left him, saying
that at the office of the American Consul he would continue his search
for the lost boxes.
Meanwhile, Peter, in his character of tourist, engaged rooms for them
at the Hotel Commercial, and started off alone to explore the town.
At the Consulate, the soiled person listened to the beginning of
Roddy's speech, and then, apparently satisfied he had learned all that
was necessary, retreated to the outer office.
The Consul promptly rose and closed the door.
The representative of the United States was an elderly man, of unusual
height, with searching, honest blue eyes under white eyebrows. His
hair was white, his beard, worn long, was white, and his clothes were
of white duck.
His name was Sylvanus Cobb Codman, with the added title of captain,
which he had earned when, as a younger man, he had been owner and
master of one of the finest whalers that ever cleared the harbor of
New Bedford. During his cruises he had found the life of the West
Indies much to his liking, and when, at the age of fifty, he ceased to
follow the sea, he had asked for an appointment as consul to Porto
Cabello. Since then, except when at home on leave at Fairhaven, he had
lived in the Spanish Americas, and at many ports had served the State
Department faithfully and well. In spite of his age, Captain Codman
gave a pleasant impression of strength and nervous energy. Roddy felt
that the mind and body of the man were as clean as his clothes, and
that the Consul was one who could be trusted.
As Captain Codman seated himself behind his desk he was frowning.
"You must look out for that guide," he said. "He is from Caracas. He
is an agent of Alvarez. It just shows," he went on impatiently, "what
little sense these spies have, that he didn't recognize your name. The
Forrester Construction Company is certainly well enough known. That
the son of your father should be spied on is ridiculous."
"Then, again," said Roddy mysteriously, "maybe it isn't. I haven't got
such a clean bill of health. That's why I came to you." With an air
which he considered was becoming in a conspirator, he lowered his
voice. "May I ask, sir," he said, "if you are acquainted with Senora
Rojas, who is in exile here?"
The blue eyes of the Consul opened slightly, but he answered with
directness, "I am. I have that honor."
"And with her daughters?" added Roddy anxiously.
With dignity the Consul inclined his head.
"I want very much to meet them--her," corrected Roddy. "I am going to
set her husband free!"
For a moment, as though considering whether he were not confronted by
a madman, the Consul regarded Roddy with an expression of concern.
Then, in the deprecatory tone of one who believes he has not heard
aright, he asked, "You are going to do--_what_?"
"I am going to help General Rojas to escape," Roddy went on
briskly--"myself and another fellow. But we are afraid he won't trust
himself to us, so I am over here to get credentials from his wife.
But, you see, I have first got to get credentials to her. So I came to
ask you if you'd sort of vouch for me, tell her who I am--and all
that."
The Consul was staring at him so strangely that Roddy believed he had
not made himself fully understood.
"You know what I mean," he explained. "Credentials, something he will
know came from her--a ring or a piece of paper saying, 'These are
friends. Go with them.' Or a lock of her hair, or--or--you know,"
urged Roddy in embarrassment--"credentials."
"Are you jesting?" asked the older man coldly.