|RICARDO RUBY, with Doctor Pacheco and Colonel Caraveo, were engaged
in consultation when Jack Webster, having left the Hotel Mateo via his
bedroom window in order to avoid possible espionage and made his way
to El Buen Amigo on foot, was announced by Mother Jenks. The three
conspirators greeted him joyously, as indeed they should, for his loyal
friendship had thus far been one of their principal bulwarks.
“Well,” Webster inquired, after greeting them and carefully closing the
door behind him, “here I am in Beunaventura, marking time and, like Mr.
Micawber, waiting for something to turn up.”
“You will not be required to wait long,” Colonel Caraveo assured him.
“Thanks to your kindly offices, the trap is already baited.”
“Our friend Ruey has, since our first meeting, insisted on dispensing
with my consent when using me to promote his enterprises, Colonel.
Strange to say, I have been unable to berate him for his impudence.
I was down at Leber's warehouse this afternoon. You have enough
road-making tools consigned to me there to build a pretty fair highway
to the gates of the government palace, I should say. I hope you have all
pondered the result to me, an innocent bystander, if your enemies should
take a notion to open one of those cases of shovels.”
Colonel Caraveo favoured him with a benignant smile. “You forget, my
friend, that I am second in command in the Intelligence Department, and
that, during the absence of your particular friend Raoul Sarros, in New
Orleans, I am first in command. Since I already know what those cases
contain, naturally I shall not take the trouble to investigate.”
“Well, that's a comfort, Colonel.”
“You have investigated your mining concession, Webster?” Ricardo Ruey
asked.
“You bet.”
“What did you find?”
“A couple of millions in sight.”
Ricardo shook his head slowly. “It is not in sight, old man,” he
reminded Webster. “Without our aid--and you cannot have our aid unless
our revolution is successful, when you shall have it freely--your
millions are, most positively, not in sight. If you want those millions,
friend Webster, there is but one way to get them--and that is to close
your eyes and play our game to the limit.”
“It seems to me I've been showing a pretty willing spirit right
along--and that without being consulted in the matter, Rick:”
“You're one man in a million. I wonder if you'd go further--about forty
thousand dollars further, to be exact.”
“I might, but I never go it blind for a wad like that. What's your
trouble?”
“The revolution will fail if you decide to deny my request. I realize I
have the most amazing presumption to ask anything of you, and yet I
am moved to stake my all on your goodness of heart, having already had
ample evidence of that goodness. In other words, I am going to apply the
old principle of driving a willing horse to death.
“The individual in charge of the funds of the revolutionary junta in New
Orleans was murdered last night; the funds were deposited to his credit
as agent in a certain bank, and before the junta can obtain legal
possession of them again the psychological time for their use will have
passed.
“We have a steamer chartered, and two hundred men, whose business it is
to fight under any flag at five dollars gold per day and no questions
asked, are now marking time on the Isle of Pines, off the coast of
Cuba, waiting for our steamer to call for them and land them, with their
rifles and ammunition and six seventy-five-millimeter field-guns and
some rapid-fire Maxims, at San Bruno, some eighteen miles up the coast
from here.
“The guns and munitions are now in Tampa, having been shipped to our
agent there on sight draft, with bill of lading attached; the steamer is
chartered and en route to Tampa from Norfolk, Virginia, and we must pay
the owners ten thousand dollars the day she begins taking on her cargo,
and ten thousand dollars before she unloads it on lighters at San Bruno.
“We must also pay two hundred men one month's pay in advance--that is,
thirty thousand dollars; we cannot meet this expense and still take up
that sight draft now awaiting our attention in the bank at Tampa.
“In return for this favour to the provisional government of Sobrante,
you shall have the note of the provisional government, signed by the
provisional president, myself, and the provisional cabinet, Doctor
Pachecho, Colonel Caraveo, and two other gentlemen whom you will meet in
due course unless in the interim they should be killed. And as a bonus
for saving this country from a brutal dictator, who is pillaging its
resources for his personal profit, you shall have a deed of gift to that
mining concession you and your friend Geary are so desirous of working;
also the title shall be certified by the government and the Supreme
Court of Sobrante and absolutely secured to you against future
aggression in the event that the new régime should be overthrown at some
future date. Also you have my profound gratitude and that of my people.”
“Tell me your plan of campaign,” Webster suggested.
“In a secret rendezvous in the mountains I have one thousand picked
men--my father's veterans. They are armed with modern rifles and
machetes. The nitrate company, which has been suffering from heavy
export duties imposed by Sarros, would help us financially, I think, but
it is not well for a provisional government to begin by asking financial
favours of a huge foreign corporation; so, much to the surprise of their
local manager, to whom I have confided my plans, I have merely asked for
the loan of all the rolling stock of the railroad for one night. It will
be mobilized at San Miguel de Padua by next Saturday night; my troops
will arrive late the same afternoon and entrain at once.
“In the interim all telephone and telegraph communications with
Buenaventura will be severed. The night previous our steamer will have
discharged her cargo of men and munitions at San Bruno; a chain of
outposts will at once be established and all communication with the
capital will be shut off.
“On Saturday night, also, the Consolidated Fruit Company's steamer _La
Estrellita_ will make port with thirty Americans in her steerage. These
men will be road-makers and miners imported by Mr. J. S. Webster, and in
order to make certain that they will come, you have already ordered them
by cable. I took the liberty of seeing to it that the cable signed by
you was sent to New Orleans several days ago, and as part of the bluff
of keeping all of your movements under surveillance, a copy of this
cablegram was furnished to the subordinate of our good Colonel Caraveo,
charged with reporting on your movements. We have arranged with the port
doctor to give _La Estrellita_ a clean bill of health the very night she
arrives. Hence the ship's authorities will not be suspicious, I hope,
when we remove our men after dark and house them in Leber's warehouse,
where they will spend the night unpacking those spades, picks, and
shovels of yours and getting the factory grease off them.
“At four o'clock in the morning various citizens of Sobrante, with
rebellion in their hearts, will begin to mobilize at Leber's warehouse,
where they will be issued rifles and ammunition and where they will
wait until the action is opened to the south by the detachment from San
Bruno, which, having marched from San Bruno the night before, will have
arrived outside, the city, and will be awaiting the signal from me. I
will attack from the west--cautiously.
“Now, there are five thousand government troops in the city and in
various cantonments on the outskirts. These cantonments are to be rushed
and set afire; I figure that the confusion of our sudden attack will
create a riot--particularly when I do something that isn't very popular
as a war feature down this way, and that is charge--and keep on coming.
Down this way, you know, Webster, a battle consists in a horrible
wastage of ammunition at long range, and casualties of three killed and
twelve wounded. The good, old-fashioned charge isn't to their liking;
they hate cold steel.
“These government troops will start to fall back on the city, only to
find themselves flanked by a fierce artillery fire from the San Bruno
contingent; the troops from the arsenal, the Guards at the palace and
the Fifteenth Regiment of Infantry, now stationed at the Cuartel de
Infanteria, next the government palace, will be dispatched post haste to
repulse the attack, and four hundred men, with the machine-gun company
waiting in Leber's warehouse, will promptly move upon them from the rear
and capture the arsenal. There are a few thousand rifles and a lot of
ammunition stored there; I miss my guess if, as soon as the news of its
capture by the rebels spreads through the city (and I shall have men to
spread it), I shall not have a few thousand volunteers eager to help
overthrow Sarros.
“When the government troops find themselves under the kind of shell-fire
I've prepared for them, and with machine guns and Maxims playing on
them, in close formation from the rear, they'll surrender in droves--if
they live to surrender.
“Once cut off from the arsenal and the palace, Sarros must fight his way
out of the city in order to have the slightest chance to suppress the
rebellion, for he will have no refuge in the city. And with the railroad
and all the rolling stock in our hands, without a commissary for his
troops, without a base of supplies, even should the government troops
fight their way through, they leave the city in my hands and I'll
recruit and arm my men and hunt them down like jack-rabbits at my
leisure. Once let the arsenal and the palace fall into my hands, once
let me proclaim myself provisional president, once let the people know
that Ricardo Ruey, the Beloved, lives again in the person of his son,
and I tell you, Webster, this country is saved.”
“You lead the army from San Miguel de Padua, Ricardo. Who leads the
detachment from San Bruno?”
“Colonel Caraveo.”
“And the machine-gun company from Leber's warehouse?”
“Doctor Pacheco. How do you like my plan of campaign?”
“It couldn't be any better if I had planned it myself. You might accept
my suggestion and armour that little motor truck of mine. It arrived on
yesterday's steamer.”
“And some armour sheet steel with it--sheet steel already loopholed for
the barrels of the two machine guns it will carry!” Doctor Pacheco cried
joyously.
“Have you provided a chauffeur, Doctor?”
“I have--likewise an armoured sheet-steel closet for him to sit in while
chauffeuring.”
“Don't forget the oil and gasoline,” Webster cautioned him quizzically.
“How about that loan to the provisional government?” Ricardo demanded
pointedly.
Webster did not hesitate. After all, what was money to him now?
Moreover, he was between the devil and the deep sea, as it were. Billy
had gone away, his hopes raised high, already a millionaire after the
fashion of mining men, who are ever ready to count their chicks before
they are hatched, provided only they see the eggs. Besides, there was
Dolores. Full well Webster realized that Billy, tossed back once more
into the jaws of the well-known wolf of poverty, would not have the
courage upon his return to Sobrante to ask Dolores to share his poverty
with him; should the revolution fail, Ricardo Ruey would be an outcast,
a hunted man with a price on his head, and in no position to care for
his sister, even should he survive long enough to know he had a sister.
Webster thought of her--so sweet, so winsome, so brave and trusting,
so worthy of all that the world might hold for her of sweetness and
comfort. She would be alone in the world if he, John Stuart Webster,
failed her now--more than ever she needed a man's strength and affection
to help her navigate the tide-rips of life, for life to a woman, alone
and unprotected and dependent upon her labour for the bread she must
eat, must contain, at best, a full measure of terror and despair and
loneliness. He pictured her through a grim processional of years of
skimping and petty sacrifices--and all because he, John Stuart Webster,
had hesitated to lend a dreamer and an idealist a paltry forty thousand
dollars without security.
No, there was no alternative. As they say in Mexico, Ricardo had him
_tiron_, meaning there was no escape. If his friendship for Billy
was worth a sou, it was worth forty thousand dollars; if his silent,
unrequited love for Dolores Ruey was worthy of her, no sacrifice on his
part could be too great, provided it guaranteed her happiness.
“Ruined again,” he sighed. “This is only another of those numerous
occasions when the tail goes with the hide. How soon do you want the
money?”
Ricardo Luiz Ruey leaned forward and gazed very earnestly at John Stuart
Webster. “Do you really trust me that much, my friend?” he asked
feelingly. “Remember, I am asking you for forty thousand dollars on
faith.”
“Old sport,” John Stuart Webster answered, “you went overboard in
Buenaventura harbour and took a chance among those big, liver-coloured,
hammerheaded sharks. And you did that because you had a cause you
thought worth dying for. I never knew a man who had a cause that was
worth dying for who would even espouse a cause worth swindling for. You
win--only I want you to understand one thing, Ricardo: I'm not doing
this for the sake of saving that mining concession the Sarros government
gave my friend Geary. I'm above doing a thing like this for money--for
myself. It seems to me I must do it to guarantee the happiness of two
people I love: my friend Geary and the girl he's going to marry. I
reject your promissory note and your promise of a deed of gift for that
concession, and accept only your gratitude. There are no strings to this
loan, because it isn't a loan at all. It's a bet. If you lose, I'll help
you get out of the country and absolve you of any indebtedness to me.
We'll just make a new book and start making bets all over again, Rick.
However, if you should win, I know you'll reimburse me from the national
treasury.”
“And you do not desire a bonus?”
“Nothing that will cost the citizens of this country one penny of their
heritage. I'm going to bet this money--bet it, understand, not loan it,
because a loan predicates repayment at some future date, and for the
sake of my self-respect as a business man I'd hate to make a bum loan
of that magnitude on no security. However, if you want to be a sport and
grant me a little favour in return, you can.”
“Name it, friend.”
“As soon as you have been recognized by the United States, I want you to
have your ambassador in Washington make representations to my government
that the present American consul in Sobrante is not acceptable to your
government. That fellow is a disgrace to my native land and I want him
fired.”
“It shall be my first official act after freeing my country from a
tyrant's yoke.”
“Another little favour also, Ricardo.” This time Webster spoke in
English.
“Eire away.”
“After I give you this money, I don't want the Doctor and the Colonel to
kiss me to show how grateful they are.”
“You wonderful fellow! Jack Webster, if I had a sister I should want her
to marry you.”
“Shows how little you'd think of your sister--staking her to a
sentimental jackass. Shall I cable the money to New Orleans in the
morning? I have a letter of credit for my entire bank-roll, and I can
give a draft at the Banco Nacional, and have them cable a New Orleans
bank.”
“That will do very nicely.”
“To whom shall I cable the money?”
“Send it to the Picayune National Bank of New Orleans, with instructions
to credit account Number 246, J. E. P., trustee. In this little game
we are playing, my friend, it is safer to deal in numbers and initials
rather than names. The local cable office leaks quite regularly.”
“Very well, Ricardo, I'll attend to it first thing in the morning. Where
are you going to armour that motor truck?”
“If you'll have it run over to the nitrate company's machine shop at the
railway terminus the foreman there will attend to the job and keep
the truck under cover until Friday night, when they'll run it back to
Leber's warehouse for the machine guns Sunday morning.”
“Is Leber in on this deal?”
“He is not. What Leber doesn't know will not worry him. He doesn't live
in his warehouse, you know. We're just going to take possession after
dark, when the water-front is absolutely deserted. There's a concert on
the Malecon that night, and everybody who can ride or walk will be out
there listening to it.”
Webster nodded his approval of Ricardo's clever plans. “All right, old
man, go to it and win, or there'll be several new faces whining around
the devil, not the least of which will be mine. When you charge,
remember you're charging for my forty thousand dollars--and go through
with it. I worked rather hard for that forty thousand, and if I must
lose it, I do not want to do it in a half-hearted fight. Give me, at
least, a bloody run for my money. I'll have a reserved seat somewhere
watching the game.”
“If you'll take my advice, you'll go aboard _La Estrellita_ and stay
there until the issue is decided. When the first gun is fired, it
signals the open season on mining engineers who butt in on affairs of
state.”
“What! And me with a healthy bet down on the result! I hope I'm a better
sport than that.”
“You're incorrigible. Be careful, then, and don't get yourself potted by
a stray bullet. When these brownies of mine get excited, they shoot at
every head in sight.”
“Shall I see you fellows before the blow-off?”
“I scarcely think so.”
“Then if you're through with me, I'll bid you all good-bye and good
luck. I'll have dinner with you in the palace Sunday evening.”
“Taken.”
“May I bring a guest?”
“By all means.”
Webster shook hands with the trio and departed for his hotel. For the
first time in many years he was heavy of heart, crushed. “Neddy Jerome
was right,” he soliloquized. “This is the last place on earth for me to
have come to. I've made Neddy sore on me, and he's lost patience and
put another man in the job he promised me; I've raised Billy's hopes
sky-high and had to bet forty thousand dollars to keep them there; I've
been fool enough to fall in love with my friend's fiancée; I'm a human
cat's-paw, and the finest thing I can do now is to go out next Sunday
morning with that machine-gun company from Leber's warehouse and get
killed. And I would, too, in a holy second, if killing a dozen of these
spiggoties were part of a mining engineer's business. I just don't
belong in this quarrel and I cannot kill for pleasure or profit. All I
get out of this deal is gratitude and empty honour, where I dreamed of
love and a home in my old age. John Stuart Webster, the family friend!
Well, after all, it isn't every old sour-dough that has an opportunity
to be a liberator, and even if I have lost Dolores, I have this
melancholy satisfaction: I have a rattling good chance of getting that
scrubby American consul.”