Two days later Bull awoke from a wild nightmare through which drunken
faces, infuriated faces, maudlin women faces, had whirled in a mad
phantasmagoria, devil's dance of singing, drinking, swearing, fighting.
As though it were another, he dimly saw himself hurling men through a
window while glass crashed and furniture crumbled around him. More
clearly, a second picture stood out--of a big black rustler--to wit,
himself--set up against a wall before a firing-squad. He even saw the
rifles aimed, and yet--his brain cool and that enormous desire gone, he
lay in a little cell-like adobe room. Light streamed over the sheet
across the doorway, and as, rising, he looked out into the _patio_ of
the German Club he heard far off the boom of cannon punctuating the
staccato pulsations of rifle-fire.
"The battle's on!"
As the thought passed through his mind it was killed by sudden agony,
poignant, though mental, as physical pain. His great hands went up and
covered his face, but could not shut out despair. "My God! I've fallen
down!"
Outside people were moving and talking. But he paid no heed; just stood,
face buried in his hands, till he recognized the "dean's" voice.
"Well, come on, fellows! They're going to it again. Let's get out where
we can see."
"I'll take a look at Diogenes first," came the voice of his friend. "You
chaps go on. I'll catch up."
Bull dropped his hands, revealing bleared eyes and swollen face to the
correspondent's gaze. "Well! well! Up and bright as a cricket! You went
it some in El Paso, Diogenes; but--last night!" He shook his head in
mock reproof.
"What did you do? What didn't you do? Drank up all the whisky here, then
went out and tried to dry up the cantinas. A few are still in
business--those you didn't break up. It took a troop to round you up.
They had you stuck against a wall when Enrico, my amigo, happened along.
Remembering that he had seen you with me, he brought you over here."
"Well, I'm sorry! damned sorry that he did!" Bull shrugged. "On'y to be
shot, like a soldier, would be too good a death for me. My kind smother
in the gutter."
His bitterness touched the other. "Look here, old man, don't take it so
hard. We all of us have our slips. The only thing to do is to get up and
go on again."
Underneath his first lightness and present sympathy a heavier feeling
had made itself felt. Bull had stretched out again on the cot, and now,
as he stood looking down upon him, the correspondent's face grew grave.
Once he opened his lips; then, unconsciously, Bull opened the way.
"Where's Benson?" He looked up. "Did he go again to Valles?"
"Unfortunately, yes. His consul warned him against it--without avail.
What happened we can only guess. You know his temper; remember what he
said on the train. Perhaps he threatened Valles. He could not have done
much more, for he left his guns in the car with the Chinaman. 'So if the
son of a gun kills me,' he told him, 'the boys will know it for murder.'
He must have had a hunch, for he never came back."
"Dead?" Bull broke a shocked silence.
The other nodded. "They acknowledge it--say he tried to kill Valles,
which is, of course, all rot."
Bull had leaped up. "Dead! And I did it! Drunken swine that I am! It's
no use." He waved away expostulations. "You yourself warned me not to
let him go alone!" He started out the door.
"Here!" the correspondent seized him. "Where are you going?"
"Out--to get drunk--get killed if I kin!"
Though he waved like a blown leaf at the end of the club-like arm, the
correspondent stuck. "All right! all right! But what's your hurry?
You'll be a long time dead, old man. If you must get killed, come with
me."
Through Bull's black despair flashed a sardonic gleam. "Humph! Stand on
a hill with a pair of glasses five miles off?"
"Not on your life, hombre! When we interviewed him yesterday that's
exactly the crack Valles made about 'gringo correspondents' and
'long-distance reporting.' I'm going to show the beggar. It's me for the
outposts where folks get killed."
Now, in his turn, Bull showed no concern. "Don't be a fool! You're paid
to get the news, not to do Valles's fighting."
The change of positions was so swift, the correspondent could not
repress a grin. "What's sauce for Diogenes is sauce for me. If you have
a right to get yourself killed, so have I."
The black shadow again wrapped Bull. "I've good reason. If I kin git
myself shot, like a man, I'm just that much ahead. But you--"
"Aw, shut up! Do you think I am going to let that greasy bandit get away
with a crack like that? We're doing too much talking. Come on!"
"I'd--" Bull hesitated. "I'd like to see--_his_ consul first. His
wife--she'd naterally like to know. She's in El Paso, just now, an' I
know her address."
"We go past there. Then I want a minute with our consul. In case I don't
turn up, I wouldn't want my San Francisco girl to be wearing weeds too
long."
Going out, Bull stopped at the bar. "You needn't to be scairt." He
answered the other's look. "My thirst's over--for a while. But I need a
bracer." Yet the half-glass of raw brandy he swallowed had a deadlier
significance. It marked the utter abandonment of hope, sealed his return
to the old life.
Shortly thereafter the two entered the British consulate. With the quiet
of despair he listened while the consul talked.
"I did my best to prevent Mr. Benson from going back, and thought I'd
succeeded. If it hadn't been that he was seen going in, he would simply
have disappeared. As it is, the cuartel general has given out several
stories. First, that he tried to shoot Valles; which is absurd, for he
carried no gun. Then that he was shot while trying to escape after being
placed under arrest. Lastly--to satisfy me and give his murder the
semblance of a military execution--that he was tried by drumhead
court-martial and fusiladoed for his attempt on the life of the general.
But of one thing I can assure you, Mr. Perrin"--he went on from a heavy
pause--"this does not end it. Already the particulars are entered upon
my records, and the British government never forgets. It may be one
year--it may be ten. But when peace is restored this business will come
up again. No matter how high the murderer may have risen, how low he may
have fallen, the case will never be dropped till there appears opposite
the name of William Benson in our archives, 'The murderer was brought to
justice.'"
The quiet surety of his speech, based on a record of centuries among
wild peoples, made it impressive. Outside, the correspondent commented
thereon in his breezy fashion.
"That's Johnny Bull for you, dignified, slow in speech, but surer than
hell! One of his subjects is killed in a far corner of Afghanistan. Up
goes a regiment and decimates the tribe--or a brigade, or an army, if
necessary; in which case, to offset the expense, the country becomes a
British province. Hombre! how long do you suppose it would take that fat
old fellow to settle this Mexican affray? Humph! He'd make shorter work
of these mushroom generals and sawdust presidents than he did of the
Hindu rajahs."
In another way the scene at the American consulate was equally
impressive. When they entered the single little stuffy room, twelve feet
square and entered from an alley, that conserved the dignity of the
United States the consul looked up, then handed the correspondent a
letter.
"Hum! Last call for Americans to get out of Mexico!" He coughed
ironically. "Know ye, all gringos, by these presents: Owing to the fact
that four hundred of you have been murdered, ravished, or tortured, and
in order to remove further temptation from the path of the gentle
Mexican, you are hereby ordered, without regard to your financial
ability, consideration for the lives you endanger in transit, or
property left behind, to return to your own country and thereby save
this department from further annoyance by your kicks and complaints!
Oyez! Oyez! Frankly," he turned to the consul, "what do you think of
it?"