Revolutions? These days? In those South American countries? Sh-h, boy,
sh-h--you don't know. In th' old gunboat days in the Caribbeans we never
called it a good week 'nless we suppressed three or four. And at that I
think we used to miss some.
Believe me, son, those were the days when they knew how to
revolutionize. You'd turn in of a night with the Blues or the Reds or
Greens, in, and have breakfast maybe in the mornin' with the Purples or
the Violets and brass bands celebratin' the vict'ry in the Palace
square.
And the first thing every new party did when they got in was to start up
the Bureau of Printin' 'nd Engravin' and roll off a few billion dollars
of gover'ment money. In Guadalquique the money for all parties was the
same, except each party used to rubber-stamp its name across the face.
An old navy yeoman hit the beach there one time named Tommie Anderson
and he was made chief of the Bureau o' Printin' 'nd Engravin' by the
Greens because he could make a rubber hand-stamp while they waited.
Some traitor who didn't get his 'd absconded with the 'ficial one,
Tommie said.
Of course that kind o' work tends to debilitate the best kind o' money.
In Almatara, which was one o' the best little revolutionary countries
ever I struck, you could see nigger boot-blacks shootin' crap for two or
three thousand dollars a throw of a holiday in the market square. It
used to cost a thousand dollars for a shine--that's a first-class shine
for a foreigner, I mean. The natives didn't have to pay that much.
Yes sir, son, a great old cruisin'-ground in the old days, the
Caribbeans, and fine times there, believe me. In the old _Hiawatha_ we'd
be layin' in to Kingston, or Havana, or Matanzas, or some port along
there, with big liberty parties ashore every day, when word 'd come from
Washington tellin' us there was hell to pay over to Guadalquique, or
Almatara, or somewhere else, and for us to beat it over there and sit on
'em before they got going.
The _Hiawatha_ she was a good old gunboat ratin' four fourteen and two
six-pounders, and, bein' the handiest thing in the fleet, 'twas always
her they detailed for those little revolutionary jobs, and aboard her we
got so, after a while, we didn't mind the report of a new revolution
any more 'n you'd mind the ringin' of the cash-register in a barroom up
here. Sometimes you'd see the skipper showin' signs of impatience,
rumplin' his hair and rubbin' his chin and maybe cussin' a little; but
he always ended by hurryin' a patrol party ashore, and we'd beat up the
grog-shops 'n' the dance-halls and the park benches and hustle everybody
aboard, and the chief engineer he'd rouse out a couple of extra stokers,
and up steam and away we'd go.
Foolish things--revolutions? Maybe. But people who say no good can come
out o' revolutions, they don't know. I got rank an' fortune out of a
revolution one time. Yes, sir, me, Killorin, bosun's mate, second class,
U.S.N. and on my first Caribbean cruise it was, and--but I'll get to
the rest of it. When I was drafted to the _Hiawatha_ on the Caribbean
station I had what you might call only a virgin notion of revolutions.
My first enlistment was 'most run out, and I was looking to be put
aboard some home-bound ship, but I was still on the _Hiawatha_ when she
was told to jog along over to Tangarine, a bustling young republic which
was beginnin' to make a name for itself in the revolutionary way.
Whatever they were doin' we were to stop it. That was the Monroe
Doctrine, the officers said. And so we put over there, but we didn't
stop it. It was all over, with the Reds in an' printin' new money and
postage-stamps and makin' a bluff to collect customs fine as could be
when we got there.
There was nothin' to keep us there, but it was a fruitful-lookin'
country and the skipper he thought he might 's well get a little fresh
grub for his mess, and he sends me ashore to do the buyin'. And I goes.
And the first grocery store I come to I says to the man behind the
counter: "How much for a ham?" And he says, quick and brisk, "Four
thousand dollars," and I was most stunned, but I manages to slap a
five-dollar gold piece down on the counter and I says, quick and brisk
too: "In God's name gimme a bite out of it!" An' I had to hire two
coolies to wheel the change back to the ship.
Well, the money values of that Tangarine place had me mesmerized, and
when my time ran out a few weeks later I settles up with the paymaster
and stands by to go over the side with my bag. The skipper he says:
"Killorin, I'll be over here by'n'by and take you off. And you'll be
glad to come, I'll wager." And I says, "Thank you, sir, but this is the
dolsee far nanity country for me. With the number o' gold pieces I got
in my pants pocket I oughter be able to pass the rest o' my days here,"
and with my big ticket and my bag I hit the beach in Tangarine,
intendin' to go straight to the palace and get chummy with the new
President first thing.
But I never got so far as the palace. Not that time. About a
quarter-mile up from the beach was a joyous-lookin' hotel with shaded
verandas all 'round and a banana grove in the yard, and on a second look
a _cantina_ shinin' with mirrors and glasses and colored bottles on the
ground floor, and on another look spacious-lookin' suites o' rooms such
as were befittin' to _señors_ of wealth and leisure on the floor above.
And over these premises I cast one sailor-like view, and through the
for'ard gangway of that glass-mounted _cantina_ I hove my clothes-bag
and myself followed after. There was also a roulette wheel, which didn't
hurt the looks of the place either.
I felt so right to home that I anchored right there--oh, three or four
or five or six days; maybe it was two weeks; but anyway--all that don't
matter--when I steadied down so's to reason like the man o' sense my
skipper always used to say I was at bottom, I was down on the beach and
it was early in the mornin', and I was watchin' a lemon-colored sun
trying to rise out of the smooth Caribbean sea, and I was wonderin'
where it was I'd mislaid my clothes-bag. I could account for everythin'
but my clothes-bag. But that don't matter either now. I never saw it
again.
And while I sat there, not feelin' just like a high-score gun-captain
after target-practice, I hears a light step behind me, and pretty soon I
could feel an eye looking me over, and by'n'by a voice said: "A ver-ry
fine good morning, sir."
"Is it?" I says, and I looks up to see who the cheerful party is. And
there was a good-lookin', well-dressed, young, dark-complected chap,
with a little bamboo cane which he kept stickin' into the sand.
And he looks at me again and says, plainly pleased and yet a little sad,
too: "The Blues are in." And I says: "That so? Since when?" And he says:
"Since last nigh-it. You did not hear, the revoloo-shee-onn?"
And I says: "I didn't--I must 'a' been takin' a nap." But I guessed it
was a good thing; leastways they couldn't be any worse than the Reds--or
was it the Yellow chaps were in last?
"No Yellow in Tangarine," he says.
"Ha, ha!" I says--"an authority."
"No Yellow--Blues and Reds only. And as for the Reds, bah! But the
Blues, good--ver-ry good," and he pulls the cane out of the sand, lunges
at the air, comes to a present, and says: "I salute you, sir." And I
said: "And I al-so salute you, señor." And he says: "Americano?" And I
said: "You betcher." And he said: "Of course. Ver-ry good. I have been
one time in your country. I have studied the langooage there, yes.
Ver-ry fine, ver-ry fine. All American people ver-ry fine. All heroes.
Yes, yes, I think so. I have read it also in your books. But par-don,
sir, what is it you do now?"
And I said I wasn't doing anything except makin' up my mind whether I'd
go back to the navy or not, and if I did, how I'd get back.
"Ah-h, man-o'-war-man. I have thought so. You sail ship--navigate, yes?"
And I said I didn't know about navigatin', but I could sail a ship if I
had to.
"I have thought so," he says. "Listen, please. While you--compose, is it
not?--your brains, should you not wish to engage in privateerin'? It is
ver-ry good wonderful opportune time now for that, while the Blues are
in control and the Reds who are on the ocean know not of it."
"H'm, we kind o' lost the privateerin' habit in our country. How do you
do it these days?" I says.
"Oh-h, sir, ver-ry sim-ple, ver-ry. My friend he is in the Blue cabinet.
A fine man, yes. He shall make for me all the privateerin' documents I
shall require. It is necessary only to request respectfully of him. Then
we shall engage a small ship and you shall navigate her, and when we
shall perceive other ships, the same who shall display the Red flag, we
shall display suddenly a Blue flag on our ship and capture them."
"And loot 'em?"
"Par-don, sir," says he, "but what is that lootem?"
"Why, whatever's in the ships we capture. Don't we get everythin' we c'n
find in 'em?"
"Oh, sir, of a surely, abso-lutely. It is the article of war. But"--he
holds up a finger warnin'like--"as commander of the expedition I shall
reserve to myself one article of any kind which shall be captured. One
chest, one table, even"--he looked at me to see if I got this
part--"even one prisoner, if I shall so desire."
"Well, that's all right, too," I said; "for I s'pose you're payin' for
the outfittin' o' this expedition?" And he says he was. "Then it's a
go," I says; "for I don't see but I might 's well be privateerin' an'
pickin' up a little loose loot as lyin' around on the beach wonderin'
where my eats are comin' from f'r the next few weeks."
So he brings me around and shows me a little brigantine, he'd chartered,
and with three dusky lads for a crew and some grub and two big chests on
her quarter-deck we sail out. And the first thing I says when we were
clear o' the harbor was: "What's them chests for?" And he opens up one
of 'em and says: "Behold, señor, your uniform!"
And I looks and there's five gold stripes on the sleeve of the coat to
begin with. And draws it all out, pants and all, and I see it's an
admiral's special full-dress uniform!
"For me?" I says.
"Certain-ly," he says. "You, señor, shall be an admiral. Why not?"
"Well," I says, "I don' know why not either, only it's some rank to
start with. But what'll you be?" And at that he opens up the other chest
and hauls out another uniform and holds it up f'r me to look at, and,
pointin' to the insignia, he asks: "What rank shall such be?"
It was a general's uniform, and I tells him so.
"So?" he says. Then bowing to me: "Then I, señor, if you do not object,
shall be a gen'ral."
"Sure--why not, señor?" I says. "And there's cert'nly some class to the
quarter-deck o' this brigantine. Let's get into 'em." And we got into
'em, an' gorgeous, oh, gorgeous, they were. An' rememberin' the market
price o' hams when I was buyin' hams, I figured they must 'a' cost ten
or fifteen million dollars apiece. And I hadn't been an hour in
mine--solid gold almost, and a gold-mounted shappo and a gold belt and a
dazzlin' sword--before I begins to appreciate what it was to be an
admiral and to respect every admiral ever I'd sailed under--except maybe
two or three--for bein' good enough to look at me at all while they were
standing round deck in their uniforms. An' f'r the next hour I kept that
crew hoppin' from one end of the brigantine to the other, just to see
'em hop when I gives an order with my admiral's uniform on.
But after I got so I could take off my shappo and draw my sword and look
down at myself without swellin' up, I says to the gen'ral, "What
d'y'say, señor gen'ral, to a little action?" and points to a lad
quarterin' down the wind toward us with a Red flag up. "It's plain," I
says, "he don't know the Blues is in. What d'y'say if we shake him up
same as a real privateer--send a hot shot across his forefoot and make
him haul his wind?"
"No, no," and the gen'ral shakes his head.
And soon there came another fellow inbound and with a Red flag up, but
again the gen'ral said, "Paysheeons, paysheeons, señor admiral," and
raises one hand to restrain my impulsive motions.
And four or five more passed, all flyin' the Red flag. But no word from
the gen'ral until toward the middle of the afternoon--and a hot
afternoon it was. The gen'ral, with the glasses to his eyes, bounces
into the air. "Ah-h!" and again, "Ah-h!" and points to her. "Now the
fair prize-a, the rich prize-a!" he says, and draws deep breaths, and
cinches up on his belt, and runs his fingers between his red and green
and yellow gold-mounted collar and his neck, and runs below and takes a
last look at himself in the mirror, and comes runnin' up on deck and
calls out: "Señor admiral, you shall prepare the ship for combat!"
"Ay, ay, gen'ral!" I says and takes out my bosun's whistle, which I'd
never turned in of a night without hangin' it 'round my neck, and which
I now lifts from the breast of my gold-mounted coat, and pipes all hands
to battle quarters. But the crew, except the one to the wheel, was under
the rail, asleep, and so I had to enforce my pipin' with the flat of my
sword. It'd been quicker to kick 'em, but, it bein' a hot day, I'd left
off my shoes. And when they come awake I orders 'em to fly the
battle-flag, which the gen'ral brings up from the bottom of his uniform
chest, a fine large bright-blue thing, with stars and horned moons on
it.
And then I makes ready a little old muzzle-loadin' gun, which was lashed
in the waist, but pointin' over the port side, which happened to be the
wrong side when we wanted to fire a shot across the enemy's bow. So we
had to tack ship, which took about ten minutes, my crew not bein' A.
B.'s. But when we did fire, the noise and the splash of water the ball
threw up was war enough for the enemy. She was about a 100-ton tradin'
schooner, and she came into the wind.
"Haul down your flag!" hollers the gen'ral in the Tangarine language,
and one of their crew was goin' to haul it down, only for a stout little
chap who came runnin' up out of her cabin and put his glasses on the
gen'ral, and then rushes over and grabs the signal halyards from the man
who was goin' to lower 'em, and hits him a clip in the neck at the same
time--a scrappy chap he looked.
"He is there--it is heemself," says the gen'ral, excitedly. But to me,
very courteous, he said: "Señor admiral, shall you manoeuvre the ship
to approach the enemy, if you please?"
"Ay, ay, sir!" I says cheerily, and puts the brigantine alongside, and
the pair of us, in our gorgeous uniforms, we leaps aboard.
"Surrender!" orders the gen'ral in a commandin' voice, but the scrappy
little man he wouldn't. He yelled somethin' at his crew, and they got
behind him. And there were four of them against me an' the gen'ral, for
our brigantine started to drift away soon as we left her, and our
spiggity crew couldn't get her alongside again.
There we were, us two heroes, marooned on the enemy's deck, in the most
magnificent uniforms, but not another blessed thing to fight with except
a couple o' gold-plated swords. But the little captain and his crew had
only what loose things they could grab in a hurry--oars, deck-swabs,
marlin-spikes, and one thing or another; but with them, without wastin'
any flourishes, they came at me an' the gen'ral, and we draws our
swords.
"What d' y' say, will we have at 'em, gen'ral?" I says.
"As you say, señor admiral, have at 'em!" answers the gen'ral, and we
haves at 'em.
But I soon begin to see we wasn't havin' at 'em in any great shape. Our
swords had two backs but no edge. It was like hittin' 'em with
barrel-staves. Fine grand echoes, but the echoes wasn't knockin' 'em
down. And the gold-mounted uniforms were in the way, too--in my way,
anyway. My gold-mounted collar was gettin' so tight after I'd warmed up
to the work that I 'most choked.
"Have at 'em!" the gen'ral cried again, "but have great care for the old
gentleman."
I was just goin' to welt the little captain a good one when I heard
that. "Not hurt him!" I says. "A hell of a battle this where we have to
play fav'rites among th' enemy. And why won't I hurt him, señor
gen'ral, an' him the best scrapper o'the lot?"
"You must not. No, no! He is the father of the lady."
"So that's it? And where's the fair lady?" I asks.
"I know not. I trust she is on this ship, but I know not. But have at
'em, as you say, señor admiral, once more, and possibly we shall
discover."
"All right, but let's have at 'em right," I says, and down on the deck I
throws my grand sword, and with it the very fine scabbard which I'd been
holdin' with one hand to keep from givin' myself the leg. And I sheds
the gold-embroidered coat on top of it. I kept wearin' the gold-mounted
shappo because the sun was hot, but the rest of me was stripped to the
waist. And I felt better, and then I says: "Come on, gen'ral, unhook
that golden armor and be free an' easy in y'ur motions like me."
"No, no, señor admiral. I shall wear my uniform, even though it is to
die in it," he answers back.
"All right, señor gen'ral," I says, "have your own way. It's the
privilege of your rank, but for me a little looser motions and a heavier
armament," and I picks up what looks like a baseball bat, but a little
longer and a little thicker and a good deal heavier than any baseball
bat. A capstan-bar it was. And if y'ever handled one you know what a
great little persuader a capstan-bar is. I could tell you a hundred
stories o' capstan-bars. Many a good fight used to be settled in th' old
sailin'-ship days with a capstan-bar.
And with my capstan-bar I haves at 'em right. Soon I had two of the
enemy backed up to the forehatch, and before their worryin' eyes I
flourishes my capstan-bar. "Now then," I says, "it's go below for you
two or a pair of cracked skulls--which?" And they went below, the pair
of them together like divin' seals, into what I see, when I takes a
peek, was mostly a cargo of pineapples and cocoanuts in bulk. I could
hear 'em bouncin' around among 'em after they struck.
And now, being well warmed up to my work and my head bustin' with
strategy, I takes the little captain in the rear and was about to lay
him low, when the gen'ral hollers: "Señor admiral, you for-get--spare
him!" So I spares him, but I whales the other last one a couple in a
soft spot and chases him, till he took a high dive too into the
forehold; and I could also hear him rattlin' and bouncin' around after
he struck the cocoanuts or the pineapples, whichever it was. Then I goes
for the little captain again, only now I picks him up and holds him
while the gen'ral ties his arms, and then, first clampin' down the
forehatches on the captured crew, we lowers him into the cabin whilst we
take a look around.
It was me for loot, the gen'ral for the fair lady. But not a thing could
I find, and him no fair lady. In the hold, topside, between decks,
everywhere; but nothin' besides cocoanuts and other fruit and some
hogsheads o' rum. The rum was an encouragin' item, but not what you'd
call loot. So we came back to the cabin and untied the captain, who
begins at once to go rollin' cigarettes and shootin' green eyes at the
pair of us. The gen'ral takes a seat opposite him and argues
beseechin'ly, but not one soft look from the little man.
The gen'ral, discouraged, turns to me. "Señor admiral, what do you say
for him? Is it not a hard heart? I love his daughter, but he----"
"She no lofe you!" snaps the little man.
"Ah-h, but how can you say that truly?" says the gen'ral, and turns to
me and says: "Is it not just, señor admiral, that I should have one
opportuni-ty to see her?"
By this time I'd filled a little jug with some rum, and there was lemons
and brown sugar and a little ice, and I thought 'twas kind o' rough on
him, and so I says: "Yes, I think y'oughter, 'specially while you got
that uniform on. But where is she?"
"Ah-h, that is it, where is she? On this ship I have thought, but
evident-ly not so."
"Maybe she's here at that, hidden somewhere," I says, "and if she is,
believe me, gen'ral, I'll find her," and leavin' a lemon swizzle to cool
I begins to search the schooner again. And this time I takes a good look
into the little captain's stateroom. I didn't find the fair lady, but
packed cutely away under the old fellow's bunk was about a cord o'
money! Nothing less than a thousand-dollar bill, but five and
ten-thousand dollar bills mostly, and all new. Lord knows how much there
was there, but I hauled a bushel or so of it out on the cabin floor by
way of a sample. And the little man never stirred when he saw it; and as
for the gen'ral, "Bah!" he said--"Red moneys!"
I was thinkin' I'd done a fine stroke, and that made me feel kind o' put
out. "I'll find that girl if she's on the ship," I says then, and I
steps over to a corner of the cabin where there'd been a fresh
boarding-up of the bulkhead.
I gazes steady at it. And I could almost feel the little man's eyes
borin' into my back! And I whirls around quick; there he was--paying no
attention to the gen'ral, but starin' at me. And to myself I says: "If
losin' all that money in his room don't jar him, it must be somethin'
good behind that bulkhead for him to worry over." And with that in my
mind I looks again at the old fellow, and now I know what it is, and the
old man knew I knew, and into his eyes came such a look that I stopped
dead. You mustn't forget that I was a big, loose, rangy 180-pounder, and
standin' there--I can see it now; I didn't then--but me standin' there,
with the heat of warm exercise and three West Indian rum swizzles oozing
out of me on that tropic afternoon, I c'n see now I wasn't any winged
angel to look at.
But I had no notion of that then, only that I was beginnin' to like the
little captain; and with that new feelin' I spoke to the gen'ral.
"Here," I says, "let's step on deck for a minute." And we went up,
leaving the old fellow below with his hands tied while we were gone. And
up on deck I says, quick and sharp: "Look here, mate, what's this about
you and the old chap's daughter? Is it all straight?"
"Straight?" repeats the gen'ral, puzzled like. "Straight? Ah-h--listen,
my friend," and he pours out on me what I wasn't huntin' for--his
autobie-ography. It was her father who had kept them apart so. Her
father, he did not love his--the gen'ral's--father. An old family
quarrel, yes. Oh, for a long time back. Politics. He was of the Reds,
her father, and his own father of the Blues. Her uncle he had been
vice-president of the Red republic. It was true. But why should he and
the beautiful daughter suffer for a quarrel which was so old, and the
girl and himself all that were left of both families? Why? And I
scratched my head and said I couldn't see why either.
And love her! Before he got through I could hear whole poems in the
little wavelets lappin' under our run, and in the evenin' breeze which
was kissin' my cheek. And the smell of oranges and pineapples and
molasses and good West India rum coming up from the main hold--'twas the
breath of roses--only I stopped to hope the captured crew in the
forehold wasn't drinkin' up all the rum in their end of the ship--and to
this side and that the lights of passin' ships were showin' and the
voices of men and women floatin' over the water, darky voices mostly,
and some were chorusin', chorusin' a shanty air which I'd last heard
from a crowd of Georgia darkies loadin' a lumber schooner, a four-masted
lumber schooner, through a great square hole in her bow from a railroad
dock on the Savannah River--one time, that was, my ship put into
Savannah and I got to know a girl lived in the Yamacraw there, and on
Sunday afternoons we used to walk up and sit on the lumber piles on
that same railroad wharf and watch the yellow river flowing by and dream
o' things that never did happen an' never could--not for her and me. And
now, aboard the little Caribbean trader, the moon was beginnin' to poke
over our starboard rail and the first little white stars were peekin'
out over the foretopsail, and the gen'ral was still talking. And when
he'd done he laid his hand on my shoulder and said: "Straight, my brave
American friend? As straight as a tall palm-tree. And all this"--he
pulls on the end of a couple of cords on his gold-mounted coat--"I
thought it would look well in her eyes." And he stops.
"But you are of the North," he says after a little while; "you think
that foolish, possibly?"
"We do," I says. "We unanimously do," and as I said it I got to thinkin'
of how when I was a boy I used to walk on my hands, and stand on my
head, and throw flip-flaps, or stop to knock the head off some passin'
kid--if I was able--anythin' so a red-ginghamed, pop-eyed little girl
sittin' on the door-step across the street would take notice. "We do
those things when we are boys," says I aloud.
"Ah-h! So you think--" says the gen'ral. "Ver-ry good," and starts to
throw off his uniform.
"No, no," I says. "Keep that on. It becomes you. And, besides, I don't
know's I'm so sure we ought all to grow up. And come below--come!" I
thought I heard the old fellow's voice below and I jumped down, and
there he was, the little captain, hurryin' away from the bulkhead.
And now I examines the bulkhead carefully, and I goes up on deck and
resumes my full admiral's coat and buckles on the fine gold-mounted belt
and sword and sets my shappo just a little to one side. I was wishin' I
had my shoes, but they were on the brigantine and she was a quarter-mile
away and still driftin'. And back in the cabin again, I picks up the
hammer and draws from the bulkhead plankin' half a dozen nails, and in
two minutes it's done, and out under the lights o' the cabin lamp
steps--O, the prettiest, slimmest little dark-eyed girl, just a match
for the gen'ral. But the first thing she sees is me, Killorin. "Ah-h--"
she says, in a long sigh with her mouth a little open, and I tosses the
hammer and nails into a corner and straightens up and takes a full
breath; and let me tell you, son, in those days the worst-lookin'
flatfoot ever climbed over a gunboat's side wasn't me, Killorin, bosun's
mate, second-class--or was I first-class then? No matter; I was in a
full-dress admiral's uniform then, and from me cocked hat to me bare
toes I was some class. I knew I was--even without my shoes. And when
again she looks at me and when again she sighs, "Ah-h--" with her little
red lips apart, I says to myself: "Killorin, son, you're makin' one big
hit." And just then her eyes looked past me and again she said, "Ah-h--"
and down among my lower ribs somewhere dropped my quick-firm' heart, and
"Killorin," I whispers to myself, "she loves you--not." For that last
ah-h--and sigh-h for the gen'ral was seven times deeper and longer than
the one she hove up at sight of me.
And while they were gazin' rapturous at each other the little captain's
eyes met mine. And with a memory o' the last time I'd been up before a
summary court-martial, I takes charge of the case. And "Sir," I says,
"it appears to me like I'd have to be judge here. You, sir, are a
prisoner o' war. And, to be more explicit, all aboard here are prisoners
o' war. But no gentleman, and I say gentleman advisedly, is goin' to
include a woman in the loot without her own consent, even if her father
did hide her away and deny the same, which is against all articles o'
war, besides bein' most disrespectful of service regulations. But in
consideration of your previous good conduct we will not mention that
now."
I turns to the gen'ral. "You, señor gen'ral, do you believe me an honest
man?" And without even lookin' at me he says, "Pff--a foolish
queschee-own, señor admiral. I have known you are honest from the
mo-ment I have seen you spendin' your money foolishly at the hotel. And
brave--as all American sailormen are brave."
"Tis well," I says. "And you"--I turned to the little captain--"you, I
fear me, sir, will have to take my honesty for granted. Now I'll be the
judge. Do you"--I faces the gen'ral again--"agree? 'Cause if you don't
you an' me'll have to hop up on deck and fight it out."
The gen'ral was still lookin' up at the little captain's daughter.
"Silence gives consent," I says. "And now," I says, "it's the young lady
will say the word. Attend me, señorita. This young man here, but two
moments agone, up on deck declared to me, while below the blue Caribbean
the sun like a fine ripe orange was sinkin', and likewise the Southern
Cross was shinin', lopsided, like a blessin' in the southwest over
toward where the hills o' South America would 'a' been if we could 'a'
seen 'em--to me, on this occasion, this young man declared he loved you.
This young man--attend me, and not him, fair lady, please--and a gallant
young man he is--I never knew a gallanter on such short notice--this
young man on the occasion aforementioned declared to me that he loves
you and wants you to wife. What have you to say to this charge? Do you
love him or do you not? Take your time in answerin'."
And I stood to one side. She was still lookin' at the gen'ral and him at
her. Just once she looked at her father and once at me--and I winked by
way of encouragement--and she looked at her gen'ral again, and looked
and looked, till all at once the gen'ral just nachally stepped across
the cabin floor and took her in his arms.
"Look here, boy," I says, stern-like, "ain't that kind o' rushin'
things? Have you a steady job--outside o' privateerin'?"
"I do not work. I have money," he says over her shoulder.
"Real money? Or this kind?" and I points to the bales of new bills in
the little captain's room.
"I have gold in the bank and much sugar plantations."
"Then, orer pro nobis, she is yours," I says, and waves my arms
beneficent-like over the pair of them. "And you and me," I says to the
old man, "as I don't see how we c'n help it, what d'ye say if we two
call the war off and have a few lemon swizzles with ice in 'em?"
And I draws a jug o' Santiago rum, and there was lemons an' sugar and a
little ice, and we foregathers like a couple of old shipmates after a
foreign cruise. And when, in the mornin', from out of the smooth
Caribbean Sea the rosy sun came swimmin' we was right there, joyous as a
liberty party on pay-day, to greet it. And the gen'ral and the señorita
also saluted the goddess o' the mornin', and after breakfast we all went
ashore, and that night I danced a taranteller at the weddin'. And,
believe me, there's class to a good taranteller dancer.
And likewise that night, with the silver moon risin' like a goddess o'
wisdom above the smooth Caribbean, and me and the little captain mixin'
lemon swizzles on the veranda of the gen'ral's plantation _hacienda_,
the little captain says to me: "I love you as one son. You shall be
captain of my ship." And as a sort of weddin' legacy he bequeathes to me
all the money was in the schooner when the gen'ral and me captured her.
And next mornin' I took up my quarters on the schooner, with the crews
of the schooner and the brigantine for body-servants. And I had one good
time. There was a basket there--a basket about the size of a good-sized
wash-basket--and every mornin' I'd shovel a lot of money into that. Oh,
I don' know how much, maybe two or three or four or five or six hundred
thousand dollars, and I'd say to the cook, or maybe one of the deck
force: "Here you, Fernando, go on up now an' hurry back." And they
weren't bad traders at all. In a couple of hours they'd come hustling
back with the full o' the basket o' chickens, eggs, butter, cheese,
bologny, and fruit--everything a man 'd want for breakfast--in place o'
the money. Fifty thousand dollars a day apiece I paid the crew, and good
and plenty for them--a lot o' lazy loafers. It used to take three of 'em
to buckle me into my uniform of a hot morning.
I never knew how much money was in that pile, but three or four, or
maybe five or six hundred million dollars. And maybe I didn't live on
the fat o' the land with it, for eight weeks! It would 'a' lasted longer
only it was the divil tryin' to be thrifty with my admiral's uniform on,
and then one mornin' the _Hiawatha_ came to port, and with what I had
left--forty or fifty million, or whatever it was--I gave a farewell
party that night at the hotel where the banana grove was in the yard. I
wore my admiral's uniform for the last time that night, and maybe that
made 'em charge me a little more, but no matter that. In the mornin' I
didn't have hardly enough to tip the waiters, three or four hundred
thousand dollars, maybe, but--whatever it was, I tips 'em with it, and
goes down to the beach to where the little, old, homely _Hiawatha_ was
laying to anchor, and 'twas eight o'clock and the bugler was sounding
colors and it made me feel homesick, and I waves my hand back to the
town, and "Fare thee well, O Tangarine-a," I says, "Tangarine-a, fare
thee well." Secretary o' the navy I could 'a' been, I know, but back
aboard the old _Hiawatha_ I goes. And damn glad, you betcher, I was to
be there.
But an admiral of the Blue I was once, with a hogshead of nothin' less
than thousand-dollar bills; and I helped to make two young people happy.
And no one c'n take that from me. And so I say when people say there's
no good in revolutions you refer 'em to me, Killorin, bosun's mate,
U.S.N.-I'll tell 'em.