down at him through a red shadow. "_Amigo_," said the face, "_Amiga.
Que tal, señor_?" He grinned, back at the face. It was Carlos, the
boy he had given a Spanish dollar, years ago. He sat up, feeling his
head spin. "Where's Sebastian?" he said.
"Sebastian!" called the boy, joyously, "Sebastian!" and now Sebastian
came running out of the red shadow with a wooden bowl in his hand.
He set the bowl down, and dropping beside Andrew, kissed him solemnly
and smackingly on both cheeks, while Carlos clucked his approval.
For a nervous moment Andrew thought Carlos was going to kiss him,
too, but he did not. He trotted back toward the campfire that made
the red shadow, calling something as he went. Then Sebastian had
picked up the wooden bowl and was feeding Andrew hot, tasty bits of
pepper-stew with his fingers.
Their luck had turned at last. The Minorcans had heard him shouting
in the woods, and thinking one of their stragglers had lost his way,
had sent out a party which came upon him as he rolled into the road
like a shot rabbit. He had missed Sebastian because Sebastian, a
little behind him, had seen firelight through the trees and had
stopped to make sure. Then Sebastian had called to him, but his ears
had been too full of his own terror to hear the call.
Revived by the stew, he listened eagerly to the news from New Sparta.
A house-boy who had been unable to get away with the main body of the
Minorcans had caught them up toward evening on a stolen horse. Of
the post of eight soldiers, only the lugubrious corporal and a
badly-wounded private remained. Dr. Gentian had been hurt in the
fight but was alive, and Mrs. Gentian and the sub-overseers now ruled
the wreck of the plantation. It was she who had checkmated Cave with
a handful of her favorite Greeks--at the last moment there had been
jealousy between the Greek and Italian sides of Cave's forces and the
Greeks had finally decided to betray the revolt, just in time to save
Dr. Gentian's life.
The Italians--what was left of them--were cowed. Some of them had
managed to get hold of the sloop and take it half-way down the inlet,
but there, having no sailors among them, they had stranded and
decided to throw themselves on Mrs. Gentian's mercy. The colony was
still unsettled and apprehensive, but Mrs. Gentian was definitely in
the saddle and she rode with a tight rein. The man did not know what
policy she intended to adopt towards the Minorcans--three messengers
at least had ridden for St. Augustine, but two of them had already
fallen into the Minorcans' hands, not unwillingly--and she could not
afford to send many more.
Andrew asked for the other news, hesitatingly. About Miss Gentian he
did not know--she was nursing her father, he thought. The words
offered Andrew an incredible picture. He saw Dr. Gentian
nightcapped, in a curtained bed, taking a cup from Sparta with a weak
hand. They were looking at each other with blank, acquiescent eyes.
That the cup contained more than beverage seemed improbable. Both
understood, both hated, but both were under the whip, for the tall
woman with the proud nose and the secret mouth had come to her
kingdom at last and bound them equally, without compunction or
passion. While she lived, they would live as she willed, now. They
had the strength of beauty and violence and wit, but she had the
strength of silence, and her strength engulfed theirs, as the well of
darkness under the world engulfs its fallen stars.
He could see them living together for years--a devoted family--a pair
of serpents under an iron bar, not daring to strike each other
because the bar was mute and cold, and they could not tell what it
would do if they struck. Some day Sparta, no doubt, would marry--her
mother's man, this time. To the world they would present a united
front. They would carry it off--oh, yes,--he trusted them for that.
He shuddered a little, seeing them all at table together, a year,
five years from now. A curly-haired young man, dressed in the
extreme of frippery, with a face as bland and foolish as a face
painted on an egg, sat at Sparta's left, making table-talk to his new
relations. Poor rabbit, thought Andrew, and smiled. The last shreds
of youth's dearest delusion, the delusion that life will come to a
climax of thunder and cease, fell from him silently. Only by
accident was life as neat a workman as that. The climax might come a
dozen times, but after each climax the workman would go on, like an
idiot building a castle, adding story upon story to what was already
complete.
His own life, by all canons of art and taste, should have finished
when the last sand fell upon the mound on the beach they had left
behind. Instead, here he was, eating pepper-stew, and relishing it,
on the whole. If there were any moral inherent in the course of
events which had happened to him, he had yet to descry it. But for
accident he would be lying in the prison ditch with lead in his
lungs, and Mr. Cave would be alive and roaring. Was he any better
off as it was and Mr. Cave any worse?--he did not know. He felt that
he was fast becoming a pagan and it hurt his sense of the fitness of
things. Then the Scotch strain in him, that drop which with the
Jewish drop and the Irish, can survive a dozen admixtures of blood to
dominate a mind, reasserted itself and told him grimly that it was
not his business to question the schemes of God, but to hold on
dourly to a predestined path between damnation and damnation, and
distrust the vain speculations of the Egyptians. He could not quite
believe its voice--would it call Caterina a vain Egyptian, he
wondered--but it sufficed to send him off to sleep as soundly as if
he were hearing John Knox preach.
4.
The camp broke up before dawn. The women gathered up their babies
and their cooking pots--the head of the column straggled out in the
road--the dust began to rise--the day's march was on. Andrew watched
perhaps a quarter of the column pass, spectral in the early light,
with a sense of dream, before he fell in the ranks at Sebastian's
side. He had always liked the Minorcans, but his ruling impression
of them had been one of gravity; he was amazed to see how lightly
they seemed to take this wild expedition. They had left the promised
land they had labored on for five years behind them and with it the
greater part of their few possessions. They were marching to an
unknown future, perhaps to prison or death, but the general mood
seemed that of children on a holiday, and ahead some boy was
strumming a cracked guitar.
A child ran out of the ranks to pick a flower, was brought back
howling, and given a slap and a sweetmeat. A mysterious Spanish joke
on a plump young man was passed from rank to rank with an
accompaniment of laughter and pointing fingers. Andrew could see the
back of the neck of the young man in question, redden under its
tan--then he turned to fling back a snorting expletive over his
shoulder and the laughter grew ecstatic. One waddling matron frankly
sat down in the middle of the road to laugh her fill and was promptly
surrounded by a circle of arguing, encouraging relations. A girl and
a boy had their hands locked together as they marched, and the ranks
around them turned into one vast admiring family that tickled them
with solemn or ribald advice, to which they paid not the slightest
attention. A grave, white-bearded elder carried a trussed live
chicken under his arm--it squawked incessantly and pecked at his
sleeve.
They had few arms and scant provender--most of the men had no better
weapons than clubs or rude wooden pikes. Sebastian was a person of
great importance since he carried a musket. An Indian attack in
force would mean massacre, a journey too long drawn out the hunger
pinch, but they seemed to have considered these things and put them
aside. Now Andrew began to understand the quality in them that had
taken them across an ocean to live in a strange land for five years
under a rod without losing heart. There was a hardness hidden
somewhere under their grace that called up all the Scot in him to
answer it and he found himself whistling "The Bonny House of Airlie"
as he trudged along in the dust.
5.
Grief, autumnal color of the stained and fugitive wood, sad vesture
of red and gold, severe counsellor, true companion--your hands touch
at the heart as lightly and idly as a child's and leave it shaken,
then like a child you depart, on light feet, idly. Honest
playfellow, candid guest, your company is strict, but for young men,
brief; no matter how straitly the spirit would detain you, mind and
body and time are too strong to endure for longer than a terse and
appointed term so reticent a visitant. The earth stirs in its mail
of frost, the geese begin to fly North again, the fire dies in the
chimney, it is time for you to go. The wind will blow over the field
but your voice will be in it no longer, the rain fall from the sky in
showers, no longer austere with the echo of your sober bells. Now
only the old, discarded traveller in the hearth-corner keeps your
shadow alive in his breast, stretching out cold, knotted fingers
before a diminishing flame.
That even the deepest sorrow can be transient was, however, a fact
which Andrew, like most people, had to learn for himself. At first
Caterina haunted the march for him, sleeping or waking, but even
twenty-four hours made a little difference, not in the honesty of his
grief but in its power to obliterate the rest of the universe.
Certain things must be done, certain motions gone through. The
constant activity of body, the uncertain immanence of danger, left no
time for that luxurious melancholy which feeds upon a full stomach
and an empty mind. Enforcedly, he began to live in the world
again--the resurrection was painful and gradual enough but, once
begun, it continued implacably.
6.
Four days later, the picture on the highway had changed somewhat in
details but not in the whole. The same slow stream of humanity
clotted the road, taking it easy to all appearances, yet stirring the
dust relentlessly with passing feet. A child had died, another child
had been born. The dead lay buried by the roadside, four men carried
the new mother and her charge on an improvised litter toward the rear
of the column. Tomorrow, or the next day, she would be back in the
ranks again. The talk was less continual, faces showed fatigue, feet
went limping. But what talk there was seemed cheerful, and those who
fell behind for a while straggled back into line eventually, some
stronger impulse than fear urging them on.
Andrew and Sebastian were at the head of the column when they sighted
the cavalry-patrol.
It was a small force, some twenty men in all, commanded by a tall,
leathery captain with a London drawl, who kept blowing his nose on a
lace handkerchief because of the dust and then looking around
savagely at his men to try and catch a smile on their faces. He
commenced to shout at the Minorcans in abominable Spanish when they
were yet some distance away, and though both Sebastian and Andrew
called back in English, it seemed to make no impression on his mind
for a long time.
"Damn my boots, what a precious lot of ragamuffins!" Andrew could
hear him saying to himself as they approached. "You can't talk their
lingo, can you sergeant? I thought not--a pretty affair, damn my
boots, to send a gentleman with his Majesty's commission to shepherd
a pack of mutinous blackguards into town. If the governor were of my
mind, he'd shoot down every last man jack of them in the ditch of the
fort, by pox and thunder--don't you think so, sergeant? Hey, you
there, the man with the dirty shirt--" he called suddenly as Andrew
came nearer, "can you talk English? Damn my boots he's staring at me
like a codfish--why don't you salute an officer, man? Stap me, the
creature stinks in the wind like Billingsgate fish-market! Talk
English, fellow! Parlay English, Anglish--yes--no?" he howled
abruptly at Andrew from a distance of five paces, as if Andrew, being
a foreigner, must be stone-deaf.
It did not surprise Andrew to be taken for one of the Minorcans.
With a ten day's beard on his face and his skin burned by the sun, he
could have passed for a scavenger. He was only surprised when the
captain, after a few interchanges, grew fairly civil on the whole.
He was like other English officers Andrew had known, apparently in a
continual sweat of puzzled exasperation whenever he had a task to
accomplish, and yet somehow getting the task done with a certain
slack efficiency that seemed to surprise himself. His
bloodthirstiness was entirely a matter of conversation. Andrew saw
him later in the day with a fat Minorcan two-year-old on the saddle
before him and an expression of weary fury on his face, muttering
savagely, "Damn my boots, you think you're a fine whelp, don't you--a
fine little piece of mutiny to boil for officers' soup--how he claws
at me, damme sergeant! I think I'd better drop him in the road and
break his head." But his arm was tightly clutched around the child,
and the child was squeaking delightedly as it pulled at the horse's
mane.
Andrew made himself as inconspicuous as possible during the rest of
the march and did not attempt to interview the captain till it was
ended. A year ago he would have done so at once, without thinking
how strange his important talk of the house of Alexander Beard and
Son would sound on the lips of a dirty, unshaven boy. Now he knew
his cue was self-effacement till he could get to the Governor. From
the talk of the patrol he gathered that His Excellency was at least
not ill-disposed toward the Minorcans and intended to give them a
chance to state their case. But he and Sebastian stood in a
different position from the rest of the host.
The other Minorcans could come into court with hands clean of
anything but a bloodless rebellion against an unjust employer.
Sebastian and he had been charged with murder and treason--Sebastian
had killed Mr. Cave--both had broken prison--to mix their grievance
with the general one would only impair the latter's chance of
redress. On the other hand, if the Governor were really Dr.
Gentian's foe, Andrew's testimony, being that of an Englishman, might
clinch the matter definitely in the Minorcans' favor. He had plenty
of time to think the matter through from every angle, and decided
finally, that his best course was to keep his identity hidden till
the end of the march came.
7.
They were camped on the outskirts of St. Augustine at last. The
captain had held a long interview with the prominent men of the
colony. In the afternoon, the Governor would ride out to see them.
Meanwhile, they must be patient. A small ration-party might go into
town, but the main body was to remain in camp and fraternize as
little as possible with the townspeople. He gave his word for the
safe-conduct of the ration-party and his assurance that if these
conditions were fulfilled, the Governor would grant them a fair and
open hearing.
Then he solemnly posted sentries between the camp and the town. It
was purely for effect--both he and the Minorcans knew that if the
five hundred wished they could brush aside the sentries and descend
on the town like locusts. But, being for effect, it served. Hemmed
in by a larger force, the Minorcans would have begun to mill like
frightened cattle. As it was they settled down quietly enough, the
women to tending their children, the men to listen to the boy with
the cracked guitar or to try and repair gear damaged on the road.
Now, thought Andrew, the time had come for him to make his stroke.
He asked to speak with the captain in private and in a few words
stated his name and his wish for an interview with the Governor.
"Damn my boots and breeches," said the captain, staring at him
keenly, while his hand drummed on the pommel of his saddle, "I
thought you spoke odd English for a Spaniard--but, body of hell, what
a tale! I wouldn't have believed--to be frank, sir, even for a
gentleman in straits, you make a damned queer appearance, if you'll
excuse the remark."
"My grandfather carried a pack," said Andrew, deliberately, smiling.
The dream of the Beards of Westmoreland departed forever as he said
it, leaving no scar behind. He might play the exquisite again, when
he had money and clean clothes, but never without a certain feeling
of masquerade. In theory, one could always tell a gentleman, no
matter how dirty he was--in practice, the matter seemed a trifle more
complicated.
"Oh, well--" said the captain, apparently somewhat relieved. He
stared at Andrew again. "It sounds so damnable odd," he confessed
frankly, "Of course you'll have some acquaintance in the city to--."
He waved his hand.
Andrew thought. He could hardly call on any of the gentlemen he had
met at Judge Willo's to bear out his story--they were all Dr.
Gentian's intimates.
"The Governor might remember me, if I were shaved," he said slowly,
"and then--is the Pride of the Colonies still in port? Captain Stout
would recognize me, I know."
"Oh, if that's your man!" said the captain, "Captain Stout's with the
Governor now, I imagine--he's had the devil of a time getting
cargo--and then the Governor's been holding him back to question him
about this insurrection in the North. He sails this afternoon--you
may catch him at the Governor's if you make haste.
Sergeant--Sergeant--" he called peevishly, "where's one of those
damned horses? I want to mount this man and send him to the
Governor."
He turned sharply to Andrew. "You'll watch yourself in the town," he
said. "They're going to burn some of your rebels in effigy in the
square today--silly nuisance burning fellows in effigy, but looks
damned well as an expression of loyalty in a report"--and he laughed
like a fox barking.
"Sergeant--take this man into town with you and see he gets to His
Excellency."
"Shall I tie him, sir?" said the sergeant, stolidly, saluting.
"Damn your boots, no. Why are you such a damned old fool? You can
knock him on the head if he tries any tricks," he added thoughtfully,
"but don't tie him now."
8.
So Andrew, for the second time, presented to the streets of St.
Augustine a queer and disreputable figure, under the hot sun. But
this time, though he was ragamuffin indeed, he cared not at all where
at first he had cared so greatly. He scuffed his broken shoes in his
stirrups, comfortably, and was only interested to note that a little
tail of pointing, giggling children followed himself and the sergeant
to the Governor's door.
"He see the Governor!" said a dewlapped Paunch with an amber-topped
cane, regarding Andrew with evident disgust. "He can't see the
Governor! Ridiculous, sergeant! The Governor's closeted--even if he
were not--the fellow's far too foul."
"Captain Strahan's orders. To see His Excellency at once," repeated
the sergeant metallically. Andrew gathered that he did not like the
Paunch.
"Captain Strahan's orders?" yammered the Paunch, nervously. "Well,
why didn't you say it was Captain Strahan's orders--if you'd said it
was Captain Strahan's--"
The Paunch's importance had shrunk--he was bustling away through a
door.
"Silly old capon," said the sergeant, devastatingly, with the air of
one who spits to relieve his mind.
The Paunch was back again, ushering Andrew along with fat, fluttering
hands. The sergeant clanked after them.
"No tricks," he was muttering. "Captain's orders. No tricks at all."
Then a door was flung open and Andrew stumbled into a big, cool room
where two men were facing each other across a desk. Both looked up
as he entered. The next moment a chair went to the floor with a
crash--and the hard paws of Captain Stout were gripping both his
hands.
It was later. Andrew and the Governor were alone. He had told his
story in detail, with certain suppressions, chiefly involving Sparta
and the killing of Mr. Cave. The Governor had put a number of
questions, most of them in regard to things that seemed to Andrew of
little importance. Now at last he seemed satisfied.
Andrew had tried to gage him during the interview. He was a narrow
man and a touchy one, but he seemed honest. Of his long-banked hate
of Dr. Gentian there could be no doubt whatever--it showed in every
line of his face when the name came up. Andrew's description of the
conditions at New Sparta had seemed to shock him genuinely, though
not quite in the way that Andrew had expected. He seemed much more
shocked, for instance, at Dr. Gentian's failure to inform him fully
that he had arrested Andrew as a traitor.
"It won't do," he kept saying. "Won't do; man must be mad.
Political prisoners should be brought before me at once."
"Well, sir!" said Andrew finally, when there seemed to be no more
questions the Governor wished to ask.
The Governor fiddled with his inkstand a moment. Then he looked at
Andrew.
"You've put me in a queer position, Mr. Beard," he said at length.
"Oh, I don't doubt your story. It only confirms what I've suspected,
ever since the colony started--but my predecessor was a firm friend
of Dr. Gentian's and--." He frowned. "Damn it, if I could only put
you in the witness-box," he burst out. "As it is, I half-wish you'd
never come to see me at all."
"I'm sorry," said Andrew. It seemed the only possible remark.
"Oh, don't apologize," said the Governor, worriedly. "After all
you've done me a service. My mind's made up now. Oh, I've no doubt
the Minorcans would have proved their point in any case, but your
tale clinches it for me. They shall have their rights, Mr. Beard.
I'll settle them here--God knows a couple of hundred good workers
will be a godsend to the town. But now, Mr. Beard." He rapped on
the desk. "What are we going to do with you?"
"I am quite at your disposal sir," said Andrew, drawing a vast breath
of relief.
"No, no," said the Governor, querulously, "that's just what you can't
be. If you stay here, some of Gentian's friends are sure to stir up
trouble about that absurd charge of treason he's brought against
you." He smiled. "Officially, Mr. Beard, I have not as yet, as I
say, been informed of that charge through the proper channels. But
if someone here should take it into his head to lodge a direct
accusation--I should have to notice it--yes--I should have to notice
it--I should have to hold you for examination, Mr. Beard--and then,
damn it, the moment I do"--he exploded again, "the fat's in the fire
and the whole Minorcan case is muddled with yours."
"Of course, sir, if you wish to"--began Andrew, slowly.
"Examine you? In God's name, why?" said the Governor, brusquely. "I
know your father's name--Captain Stout's told me of the sacrifices
he's already made for the Crown." Captain Stout had obviously
omitted any mention of Lucius, and Andrew was very grateful. "If you
were a traitor, why the devil would you be sitting here talking to
me?" the Governor ended. The question seemed unanswerable, and
Andrew himself began to wonder why.
"No, Mr. Beard," the Governor went on. "The charge against you is
absurd, but it must not be pressed. I've no doubt Captain Stout will
trust your father's son for a passage to New York. When you reach
there, you will, naturally, join the army. They say De Lancey's
raising a troop of loyalist horse--well, Mr. Beard, there's my
advice, unofficially. Do you find it reasonable?"
"Most reasonable, your Excellency," said Andrew, with a slight smile.
"I shall, as you say, return to New York at once--and join the army."
"Good," said the Governor, rising. "I shan't ask you for a
deposition, Mr. Beard--it will be best if your name is not brought in
at all. You'll find Captain Stout in the anteroom--and I should
advise you going aboard at once, if I may suggest it."
"I have to say goodbye to a friend," said Andrew. "After that I
shall go aboard as soon as possible."
"A friend?" said the Governor. "Oh, yes--the Minorcan boy who was in
prison with you. I wish we could get him away too. He'll only serve
to confuse things--and I want a clear case." He looked at Andrew.
"Perhaps it can be managed," said Andrew, thanking his gods for the
narrow strength of the Governor's hate of Dr. Gentian, that now
blinded him to everything but the prospect of the latter's ruin.
"Good day, your Excellency--and thank you."
"Good day, Mr. Beard, and a safe voyage," said the Governor, turning
back to his papers, and Andrew bowed and retreated from the lion's
jaws.
9.