A SOLDIER OF FORTUNE
Captain Oisin Sarrasin came one morning to see the Dictator by
appointment.
Captain Oisin Sarrasin had described himself in his letter to the
Dictator as a soldier of fortune. So he was indeed, but there are
soldiers and soldiers of fortune. Ho was not the least in the world like
the Orlando the Fearless, who is described in Lord Lytton's 'Rienzi,'
and who cared only for his steed and his sword and his lady the
peerless. Or, rather, he was like him in one respect--he did care for
his lady the peerless. But otherwise Captain Oisin Sarrasin resembled in
no wise the traditional soldier of fortune, the Dugald Dalgetty, the
Condottiere, the 'Heaven's Swiss' even. Captain Sarrasin was terribly in
earnest, and would not lend the aid of his bright sword to any cause
which he did not believe to be the righteous cause, and, owing to the
nervous peculiarities of his organisation, it was generally the way of
Captain Sarrasin to regard the weaker cause as the righteous cause. That
was his ruling inclination. When he entered as a volunteer the Federal
ranks in the great American war, he knew very well that he was entering
on the side of the stronger. He was not blinded in the least, as so many
Englishmen were, by the fact that in the first instance the Southerners
won some battles. He knew the country from end to end, and he knew
perfectly well what must be the outcome of such a struggle. But then he
went in to fight for the emancipation of the negroes, and he knew that
they were the weakest of all the parties engaged in the controversy, and
so he struck in for them.
He was a man of about forty-eight years of age, and some six feet in
height. He was handsome, strong, and sinewy--all muscles and flesh, and
no fat. He had a deep olive complexion and dark-brown hair and
eyes--eyes that in certain lights looked almost black.
He was a silent man habitually, but given anything to talk about in
which he felt any interest and he could talk on for ever.
Unlike the ordinary soldier of fortune, he was not in the least
thrasonical. He hardly ever talked of himself--he hardly ever told
people of where he had been and what campaigns he had fought in. He
looked soldierly; but the soldier in him did not really very much
overbear the demeanour of the quiet, ordinary gentleman. At the moment
he is a leader-writer on foreign subjects for a daily newspaper in
London, and is also retained on the staff in order that he may give
advice as to the meaning of names and places and allusions in late
foreign telegrams. There is a revolution, say, in Burmah or Patagonia,
and a late telegram comes in and announces in some broken-kneed words
the bare fact of the crisis. Then the editor summons Captain Sarrasin,
and Sarrasin quietly explains:--'Oh, yes, of course; I knew that was
coming this long time. The man at the head of affairs was totally
incompetent. I gave him my advice many a time. Yes, it's all right. I'll
write a few sentences of explanation, and we shall have fuller news
to-morrow.' And he would write his few sentences of explanation, and the
paper he wrote for would come out next morning with the only
intelligible account of what had happened in the far-off country.
The Dictator did not know it at the time, but it was certain that
Captain Sarrasin's description of the rising in Gloria and the expulsion
of Gloria's former chief had done much to secure a favourable reception
of Ericson in London. The night when the news of the struggle and the
defeat came to town no newspaper man knew anything in the world about it
but Oisin Sarrasin. The tendency of the English Press is always to go in
for foreign revolutions. It saves trouble, for one thing. Therefore, all
the London Press except the one paper to which Oisin Sarrasin
contributed assumed, as a matter of course, that the revolution in
Gloria was a revolution against tyranny, or priestcraft, or corruption,
or what not--and Oisin Sarrasin alone explained that it was a revolution
against reforms too enlightened and too advanced--a revolution of
corruption against healthy civilisation and purity--of stagnation
against progress--of the system comfortable to corrupt judges and to
wealthy suitors, and against judicial integrity. It was pointed out in
Captain Sarrasin's paper that this was the sort of revolution which had
succeeded for the moment in turning out the Englishman Ericson--and the
other papers, when they came to look into the matter, found that Captain
Sarrasin's version of the story was about right--and in a few days all
the papers when they came out were glorifying the heroic Englishman who
had endeavoured so nobly to reorganise the Republic of Gloria on the
exalted principles of the British Constitution, and had for the time
lost his place and his power in the generous effort. Then the whole
Press of London rallied round the Dictator, and the Dictator became a
splendid social success.
Oisin Sarrasin had been called to the English bar and to the American
bar. He seemed to have done almost everything that a man could do, and
to have been almost everywhere that a man could be. Yet, as we have
said, he seldom talked of where he had been or what he had done. He did
not parade himself--he was found out. He never paraded his intimate
knowledge of Russia, but he happened at Constantinople one day to sit
next to Sir Mackenzie Wallace at a dinner party, and to get into talk
with him, and Sir Mackenzie went about everywhere the next day telling
everybody that Captain Sarrasin knew more about the inner life of Russia
than any other Englishman he had ever met. It was the same with Stanley
and Africa--the same with Lesseps and Egypt--the same with South America
and the late Emperor of Brazil, to whom Captain Sarrasin was presented
at Cannes. There was a story to the effect that he had lived for some
time among the Indian tribes of the Wild West--and Sarrasin had been
questioned on the subject, and only smiled, and said he had lived a
great many lives in his time--and people did not believe the story. But
it was certain that at the time when the Wild West Show first opened in
London, Oisin Sarrasin went to see it, and that Red Shirt, the fighting
chief of the Sioux nations, galloping round the barrier, happened to see
Sarrasin, suddenly wheeled his horse, and drew up and greeted Sarrasin
in the Sioux dialect, and hailed him as his dear old comrade, and talked
of past adventures, and that Sarrasin responded, and that they had for a
few minutes an eager conversation. It was certain, too, that Colonel
Cody (Buffalo Bill), noticing the conversation, brought his horse up to
the barrier, and, greeting Sarrasin with the friendly way of an old
comrade, said in a tone heard by all who were near, 'Why, Captain, you
don't come out our way in the West as often as you used to do.' Sarrasin
could talk various languages, and his incredulous friends sometimes laid
traps for him. They brought him into contact with Richard Burton, or
Professor Palmer, hoping in their merry moods to enjoy some disastrous
results. But Burton only said in the end, 'By Jupiter, what a knowledge
of Asiatic languages that fellow has!' And Palmer declared that Sarrasin
ought to be paid by the State to teach our British officers all the
dialects of some of the East Indian provinces. In a chance mood of
talkativeness, Sarrasin had mentioned the fact that he spoke modern
Greek. A good-natured friend invited him to a dinner party with M.
Gennadius, the Greek Minister in London, and presented him as one who
was understood to be acquainted with modern Greek. The two had much
conversation together after dinner was over, and great curiosity was
felt by the sceptical friends as to the result. M. Gennadius being
questioned, said, 'Oh, well, of course he speaks Greek perfectly, but I
should have known by his accent here and there that he was not a born
Greek.'
The truth was that Oisin Sarrasin had seen too much in life--seen too
much of life--of places, and peoples, and situations, and so had got his
mind's picture painted out. He had started in life too soon, and
overclouded himself with impressions. His nature had grown languorous
under their too rich variety. His own extraordinary experiences seemed
commonplace to him; he seemed to assume that all men had gone through
just the like. He had seen too much, read too much, been too much. Life
could hardly present him with anything which had not already been a
familiar object or thought to him. Yet he was always on the quiet
look-out for some new principle, some new cause, to stir him into
activity. He had nothing in him of the used-up man--he was curiously the
reverse of the type of the used-up man. He was quietly delighted with
all he had seen and done, and he still longed to add new sights and
doings to his experiences, but he could not easily discover where to
find them. He did not crave merely for new sensations. He was on the
whole a very self-sufficing man--devoted to his wife as she was devoted
to him. He could perfectly well have done without new sensations. But he
had a kind of general idea that he ought to be always doing something
for some cause or somebody, and for a certain time he had not seen any
field on which to develop his Don Quixote instincts. The coming of
Ericson to London reminded him of the Republic of Gloria, and of the
great reforms that were only too great, and, as we have said, he wrote
Ericson up in his newspaper.
Captain Sarrasin had a home in the far southern suburbs, but he had
lately taken a bedroom in Paulo's Hotel. The moment Captain Sarrasin
entered the room the Dictator remembered that he had seen him before.
The Dictator never forgot faces, but he could not always put names to
them, and he was a little surprised to find that he and the soldier of
fortune had met already.
He advanced to meet his visitor with the smile of singular sweetness
which was so attractive to all those on whom it beamed. The Dictator's
sweet smile was as much a part of his success in life--and of his
failure, too, perhaps--as any other quality about him--as his nerve, or
his courage, or his good temper, or his commander-in-chief sort of
genius.
'We have met before, Captain Sarrasin,' he said. 'I remember seeing you
in Gloria--I am not mistaken, surely?'
'I was in Gloria,' Captain Sarrasin answered, 'but I left long before
the outbreak of the revolution. I remained there a little time. I think
I saw even then what was coming. I am on your side altogether.'
'Yes, so you were good enough to tell me. Well, have you heard any late
news? You know how my heart is bound up with the fortunes of Gloria?'
'I know very well, and I think I do bring you some news. It is all going
to pieces in Gloria without you.'
'Going to pieces--how can that be?'
'The Republic is torn asunder by faction, and she is going to be annexed
by her big neighbour.'
'The new Republic of Orizaba?'
This was a vast South American state which had started into political
existence as an empire and had shaken off its emperor--sent him home to
Europe--and had set up as a republic of a somewhat aggressive order.
'Yes, Orizaba, of course.'
'But do you really believe, Captain Sarrasin, that Orizaba has any
actual intentions of that kind?'
'I happen to know it for certain,' Captain Sarrasin grimly replied.
'How do you know it, may I ask?'
'Because I have had letters offering me a command in the expedition to
cross the frontier of Gloria.'
The Dictator looked straight into the eyes of Captain Sarrasin. They
were mild, blue, fearless eyes. Ericson read nothing there that he might
not have read in the eyes of Sarrasin's quiet, scholarly, untravelled
brother.
'Captain Sarrasin,' he said, 'I am an odd sort of person, and always
have been--can't help myself in fact. Do you mind my feeling your
pulse?'
'Not in the least,' Sarrasin gravely answered, with as little expression
of surprise about him as if Ericson had asked him whether he did not
think the weather was very fine. He held out a strong sinewy and white
wrist. Ericson laid his finger on the pulse.
'Your pulse as mine,' he said, 'doth temperately keep time, and makes as
healthful music.'
Captain Sarrasin's face lighted.
'You are a Shakespearian?' he said eagerly. 'I am so glad. I am an
old-fashioned person, and I love Shakespeare; that is only another
reason why----'
'Go on, Captain Sarrasin.'
'Why I want to go along with you.'
'But do you want to go along with me, and where?'
'To Gloria, of course. You have not asked me why I refused to give my
services to Orizaba.'
'No; I assumed that you did not care to be the mercenary of an
invasion.'
'Mercenary? No, it wasn't quite that. I have been a mercenary in many
parts of the world, although I never in my life fought on what I did not
believe to be the right side. That's how it comes in here--in your case.
I told the Orizaba people who wrote to me that I firmly believed you
were certain to come back to Gloria, and that if the sword of Oisin
Sarrasin could help you that sword was at your disposal.'
'Captain Sarrasin,' the Dictator said, 'give me your hand.'
Captain Sarrasin was a pretty strong man, but the grip of the Dictator
almost made him wince.
'When you make up your mind to go back,' Captain Sarrasin said, 'let me
know. I'll go with you.'
'If this is really going on,' the Dictator said meditatively--'if
Orizaba is actually going to make war on Gloria--well, I _must_ go back.
I think Gloria would welcome me under such conditions--at such a crisis.
I do not see that there is any other man----'
'There is no other man,' Sarrasin said. 'Of course one doesn't know what
the scoundrels who are in office now might do. They might arrest you and
shoot you the moment you landed--they are quite capable of it.'
'They are, I dare say,' the Dictator said carelessly. 'But I shouldn't
mind that--I should take my chance,' And then the sudden thought went to
his heart that he should dislike death now much more than he would have
done a few weeks ago. But he hastened to repeat, 'I should take my
chance.'
'Of course, of course,' said Sarrasin, quite accepting the Dictator's
remark as a commonplace and self-evident matter of fact. 'I'll take _my_
chance too. I'll go along with you, and so will my wife.'
'Your wife?'
'Oh, yes, my wife. She goes everywhere with me.'
The face of the Dictator looked rather blank. He did not quite see the
appropriateness of petticoats in actual warfare--unless, perhaps, the
short petticoats of a _vivandière_; and he hoped that Captain Sarrasin's
wife was not a _vivandière_.
'You see,' Sarrasin said cheerily, 'my wife and I are very fond of each
other, and our one little child is long since dead, and we have nobody
else to care much about. And she is a tall woman, nearly as tall as I
am, and she dresses up as my _aide-de-camp_; and she has gone with me
into all my fights. And we find it so convenient that if ever I should
get killed, then, of course, she would manage to get killed too, and
_vice versâ--vice versâ_, of course. And that would be so convenient,
don't you see? We are so used to each other, one of us couldn't get on
alone.'
The Dictator felt his eyes growing a little moist at this curious
revelation of conjugal affection.
'May I have the honour soon,' he asked, 'of being presented to Mrs.
Sarrasin?'
'Mrs. Sarrasin, sir,' said her husband, 'will come whenever she is asked
or sent for. Mrs. Sarrasin will regard it as the highest honour of her
life to be allowed to serve upon your staff with me.'
'Has she been with you in all your campaigns?' Ericson asked.
'In all what I may call my irregular warfare, certainly,' Captain
Sarrasin answered. 'When first we married I was in the British service,
sir; and of course they wouldn't allow anything of the kind there. But
after that I gave up the English army--there wasn't much chance of any
real fighting going on--and I served in all sorts of odd irregular
campaignings, and Mrs. Sarrasin found out that she preferred to be with
me--and so from that time we fought, as I may say, side by side. She has
been wounded more than once--but she doesn't mind. She is not the woman
to care about that sort of thing. She is a very remarkable woman.'
'She must be,' the Dictator said earnestly. 'When shall I have the
chance of seeing her? When may I call on her?'
'I hardly venture to ask it,' Captain Sarrasin said; 'but would you
honour us by dining with us--any day you have to spare?'
'I shall be delighted,' the Dictator replied. 'Let us find a day. May I
send for my secretary?'
Mr. Hamilton was sent for and entered, bland and graceful as usual, but
with a deep sore at his heart.
'Hamilton, how soon have I a free day for dining with Captain Sarrasin,
who is kind enough to ask me?'
Hamilton referred to his engagement-book.
'Saturday week is free. That is, it is not filled up. You have seven
invitations, but none of them has yet been accepted.'
'Refuse them all, please; I shall dine with Captain Sarrasin.'
'If Mr. Hamilton will also do me the pleasure----' the kindly captain
began.
'No, I am afraid I cannot allow him,' the Dictator answered. 'He is sure
to have been included in some of these invitations, and we must diffuse
ourselves as much as we can. He must represent me somewhere. You see,
Captain Sarrasin, it is only in obedience to Hamilton's policy that I
have consented to go to any of these smart dinner parties at all, and he
must really bear his share of the burden which he insists on imposing
upon me.'
'All right; I'm game,' Hamilton said.
'He likes it, I dare say,' Ericson said. 'He is young and fresh and
energetic, and he is fond of mashing on to young and pretty women--and
so the dinner parties give him pleasure. It will give me sincere
pleasure to dine with Mrs. Sarrasin and you, and we'll leave Hamilton to
his countesses and marchionesses. But don't think too badly of him,
Captain Sarrasin, for all that: he is so young. If there is a fight to
go on in Gloria he'll be there with you and me--you may depend on that.'
'But is there any chance of a fight going on?' Hamilton asked, looking
up from his papers with flushing face and sparkling eyes.
'Captain Sarrasin thinks that there is a good chance of something of the
kind, and he offers to be with us. He has certain information that there
is a scheme on foot in Orizaba for the invasion and annexation of
Gloria.'
Hamilton leaped up in delight.
'By Jove!' he exclaimed, 'that would be the one chance to rally all that
is left of the national and the patriotic in Gloria! Hip, hip,
hurrah!--one cheer more--hurrah!' And the usually demure Hamilton
actually danced then and there, in his exultation, some steps of a
music-hall breakdown. His face was aflame with delight. The Dictator and
Sarrasin both looked at him with an expression of sympathy and
admiration. But there were different feelings in the breasts of the two
sympathising men. Sarrasin was admiring the manly courage and spirit of
the young man, and in his admiration there was that admixture of
melancholy, of something like compassion, with which middle-age regards
the enthusiasm of youth.
With the Dictator's admiration was blended the full knowledge that, amid
all Hamilton's sincere delight in the prospect of again striking a blow
for Gloria, there was a suffused delight in the sense of sudden
lightening of pain--the sense that while fighting for Gloria he would be
able, in some degree, to shake off the burden of his unsuccessful love.
In the wild excitement of the coming struggle he might have a chance of
now and then forgetting how much he loved Helena Langley and how she did
not love him.