Alone in his room, Jeff found perfectly logical explanations for many
mysterious things. He conceded that Molly was somewhat superior, in
intelligence and charm, to most girls of her class, and thus he had
enjoyed the journey with her and had found certain things about her to
like and even to admire. To-night, however, he had been the victim of a
strangely seductive atmosphere; he had been so taken with the beauty and
brilliance of the ball that he had lost certain powers of
discrimination, and had simply seen Molly through the colored glass of
romance. Probably she did not dance half so divinely as he had thought.
Now he put his mind to it, he decided that her costume had been too
daring altogether. He wished he had not devoted so much time and
interest to her, but had looked more carefully about the dance floor. He
might have met some one whom he would be really honored to know.
He went to sleep thinking upon these things, and wakened with the
Alaskan sun shining genially through the window of his stateroom. He
dressed, breakfasted, and went out for a daylight view of the city.
No wonder Sitkan life was gay! This was the golden age of the town; and
the fur trade had made it a real metropolis. There were office
buildings, shops, and stores, workshops of all kinds such as laundries,
bakeries, joineries, and foundries; there was a sawmill, and at the edge
of the town a flour mill run by water power. The seminary would have
done credit to a European city; and the cathedral, built as usual in the
form of a cross and having three sanctuaries and three altars, brought a
vision of the Old World to the benighted Aleut who knelt in its chapel.
He was not surprised to learn that its chime of bells was a gift from
the Church at Moscow, that priceless sacred paintings adorned its
chapels, and that the silver and gold in the _repoussé_ work of the
icons and of the vestments and sacred vessels—the accumulation of a
century—were worth a king’s ransom.
On his walk through the town he visited public gardens and arbors; and
he saw with relief that if he ever fell wounded in a duel with Baron
Karl, there was a well-equipped hospital where he might be cured. While
no other house in the city could compare with the Governor’s mansion,
the officers of the post had pleasant quarters, and the soldiers were
billeted in comfortable barracks. Block-houses and a stockade protected
the town from Indian attack.
To the west of the hill stood the carefully guarded fur warehouse, and
through Yanovisk’s kindness, a guide was appointed to take him through
it. Thereafter it was not hard to explain Sitkan prosperity, or to
understand why the eyes of all nations were now turned north. No wonder
Seward had dreamed of the northern march of his flag. Alaska was the
last, great prize for which the great powers played desperate poker, and
now Jeff knew why.
Heaped in glossy piles was the treasure that had brought the Russians
across the seas. For this, they had enslaved an entire people, all but
annihilated a great tribe, built forts in the wilderness. The Muscovite
was never a home-maker. He came to America to plunder, and here was his
spoil.
There were bales of beaver, rich brown pelts almost circular in shape,
and covered with a shining guard hair that had once been jeweled with
water drops. Wherever trees grew and water ran men had gone to procure
them; and when the story of Alaska is finally written it must be on
parchment made of beaver leather. The picture that came to Jeff’s mind
was of a lonely, yellow marsh in the midst of the wood, of wide, deep
canals dug with unthinkable labor, of tall trees humbled and felled by
the patient encroachments of nibbling teeth, of engineering feats which
men will always wonder at, and never understand.
There were land otter, glossy brown and rich; full of lights as he moved
them in his hands. The inland waters had yielded these: wild, little
streams, unnamed, racing forever through lost and hidden valleys; great
rivers, wide and blue, on which the trappers’ birch-bark craft was but a
black spot, hardly seen; roaring cataracts that humbled men to see;
serene lakes imaging the shadow of a lone cormorant; still, dark, and
mysterious sloughs where the deer drink, in the deep and silent woods.
There were martens—sables the Russians called them—lovely to touch,
dusky as shadows in autumn woods. These came from the timbered country,
and no Oriental weaver could dream of their beauty. There were fishers,
to Jeff merely beautiful furs, but veritable voodoos to the old workman,
once a trapper in the interior, who was guiding him through the
warehouse. This man remembered many a day when a fisher had beat him
along his trap line, robbing bait and leaving worthless scraps of fur in
place of his precious trophies.
There were glossy mink, golden-brown, once the terror of bird and
rodent; there were ermines, snowwhite and softer to the touch than any
silk; there were muskrats from the bleak, frozen muskegs of the
interior; there were spotted lynx whose mournful whine so often wakes
the sleeping woodsman in his lonely camp: the fierce hunter with eyes
that glow and go out and glow again in the deep gloom about the supper
fire.
There were long-haired foxes, popular among the nobles of China and
Russia but not well known in America—magnificent silvers, full of
imprisoned moonbeams; blue foxes from the bleak, storm-swept Alaskan
peninsula far to the west—deep, rich, lustrous blacks. There were red
foxes by the thousand, and bale after bale of white foxes, immaculate as
the wastes of snow through which they hunted. These came from the most
northerly posts of the Company, pursued and trapped in the long,
mysterious dusk of the Arctic night.
There was bale after bale of seals, sent from the far Pribilofs far to
the westward. Up the rocky shores of those wintry islands came the sea
herds, a roaring band whose numbers were almost beyond reckoning. No man
knew what summons brought them, or how they had found the way; their
great seasonal migration was no less a mystery to the unlettered Aleut
who flayed them than to the wisest naturalist who came to study the
cycle of their secret lives. On the windy beach they fought, mated, and
played, and some of them returned to the sea. These huge bales
represented a small part of those which did not return.
When Jeff had seen all these, and all the lesser furs such as wolverine,
skunk, and bear, there still remained the fur that had made Alaskan
history. In a separate room in the warehouse, under the care of a
special guard, Jeff was shown a bale of long, lustrous pelts, like
living things in the dusk of the rooms. Jeff had never dreamed of furs
like these. When he chose one from the pile and held it up, it shimmered
and gleamed with a hundred mysterious lights, and it rippled and
twitched in indescribable beauty as he dropped it on the pile. Some of
the skins were a deep, rich color, some almost black with silver tips.
“Sea otter,” the guide told him simply. “Any one of ’em is the price of
murder.”
He told how in the beginning Russian adventurers had sailed across an
unknown sea solely in the pursuit of these magnificent skins, even then
worth more than their weight in gold in Chinese markets. Aleut villages
had been wiped out for a bale of them; and the great Russian-American
Company had been organized principally to deal in them. Still, no sea
was too broad to cross if there was the rumor of a sea otter rookery
beyond; no island was too unknown and far for the hunters to seek them;
no reef so perilous but that it would be braved by the Aleutian
_bidarkas_.
“They’re worth four hundred dollars a skin now, and the market’s going
up all the time as the catch of skins decreases,” the old workman told
him. “There’s quite a pile of money in that bale!”
“Marvelous, isn’t it?” Jeff agreed. “What a marvelous system behind it
all!”
“It’s certainly a wonderful system—for the lords and ladies who own the
Company.”
Jeff’s mind was still on the furs; and he did not notice the odd,
meaningful tone in which the workman spoke. “I suppose the Company paid
tremendous dividends until the Czar began putting on too many
restrictions. But they deserved to—no one can belittle what they have
done out here. Think of reaping such a harvest of gold out of this empty
wilderness, these stormy seas! You must be proud to be a member of such
an organization.”
“I ain’t a member of it. I am just a workman.”
“Just the same, you contribute to it. I don’t think many other countries
could have done what Russia has done—the building of this gay city out
here at the edge of the world; the development of such a profitable
organization. I don’t believe even England could do it—at least they
couldn’t make so much out of it. America’s attempt would be simply
pitiful.”
“No. America couldn’t do it. I know America.”
“You do?”
“Yes. I ain’t a noble, to learn to talk English from a tutor. I spent
five years in California—1849-1854. If America should happen to get
hold of Alaska, Sitka might almost die out, and it might be a long time
before it would come back again. At least, it would be just an Alaskan
trading post instead of a European city. There wouldn’t be such a
harvest of gold sent back for dividends. Just the same—I wish America
owned it!”
“You do!” Jeff stared incredulously, but the old man was certainly in
earnest. His dimmed eyes gleamed in his weather-beaten face.
“Oh, don’t I! If America did own it, Alaska wouldn’t be just a fur farm
for a bunch of ladies and gentlemen back in Moscow and St. Petersburg.
It would be a land of opportunity, not for lords and ladies who dance in
fancy-dress costumes to the music of a military band, but for common men
like me. What does the Company care for the country or the people?
They’ve built this city not for colonization purposes, but just as a
post to handle the furs that the driven people bring in. They haven’t
tried to build an Alaskan city; they’ve made it just as near like a
Russian city as they could, to pass the time pleasantly in, until they
can enrich themselves, and then go back to Russia.”
“There is such a thing as loyalty, sir!” Jeff told him gravely.
“I am loyal to the Czar—God bless him—as long as I’m a Russian. It
isn’t him that causes the trouble; it’s the rule of the nobles. I give
this Company my best work; but if you think I have anything like the
opportunities, the decent treatment, or the chance for advancement that
I’d have if this was an American company, you’re badly mistaken. It was
organized to take gold out of Alaska, and that’s what it is doing. Why
shouldn’t it pay tremendous dividends? Any system based on slave labor
is going to pay dividends. Why shouldn’t they build a nice cathedral
when they know that the devotion of the natives to the priests of the
Greek church is one of the main holds they have on ’em. They’ve got
other systems too, now that the Czar has frowned on forced labor. Look
at us white workers—we’re kept constantly in debt to the Company, and
have as much chance of getting out as if we was in jail. We’re under the
strictest kind of a military discipline. Not long ago Chief Big Eagle, a
native who can mutter a little English and talk Russian pretty good—an
intelligent fellow as these natives go—tried to get word out to the
Czar about some evils that had been done to his tribe. The Czar is a
good Czar, God bless him—liberal and fair to the people more than any
Czar that has ever sat on the Russian throne—and Big Eagle thought he
would take the native’s side against the Company, as he might have done
if the message had ever got through. It was intercepted—and now you
wait and see what happens to Big Eagle.”
“I suppose he’ll be given some sort of punishment for not sending his
appeal through the proper channels. We have the same thing in our army.”
“It’s the military idea, all right. He’d had a fine chance for getting
it through the regular channels. Yes, he will have some sort of
punishment, as you say. I’d like to warn him, if I dared—tell him his
message was intercepted so he could clear out—but I know what would
happen to me if I got caught doing it. Mark my words—one of these days
Big Eagle will show up missing. His family will be informed that his
bidarka was wrecked while he was hunting sea otter for the Company.
They’ll never see him again, and they’ll wonder, but they won’t dare ask
questions. Maybe they’ll be told that he got lost in the woods, maybe
that he was torn to pieces by a bear. Anyway, Big Eagle will be
gone—likely assassinated, perhaps quietly shipped off—West!”
“Do you mean—Siberia!” Jeff’s voice showed incredulity. He had heard of
the Siberian prisons, but he thoroughly disbelieved the stories told of
them.
“Sure. He’ll be given a number, and that’s the last anybody will ever
hear of him. The prison officials themselves won’t know his name. No one
will ever inquire for him, and if they did he couldn’t be found. That’s
part of the system—a mighty successful system, too—one that these
fellows who go in for systems ought to admire. He’ll work over there,
and after a while he’ll die when he’s worked out, and that will be the
end of the story.”
“Do you mean—that sort of thing happens frequently?”
“It happens often enough to keep the system running. I shouldn’t be
telling you these things. You could make me a lot of trouble if you
wanted to—trouble such as you’d never dreamed of. I wouldn’t dare tell
you, except—”
“Except why?”
Jeff was considerably stirred by now, and his face showed it. His black
eyes seemed to shoot sparks, and rich color glowed high in his cheeks.
He felt that the man’s answer would have deep meaning for him.
“Except that you are an American.”
The little disks of color deepened and spread in Jeff’s cheeks. “And
does that make a great deal of difference to you?”
“I want to tell you it does.” The old man’s voice wavered as he tried to
hide his fervor. “I know what Americans stand for—equality of
opportunity, and a square deal for the common man!”
Jeff had no opportunity to think up a suitable answer. At this point in
the talk Yanovisk came up, bearing an invitation for lunch at the
Executive Mansion. As the two young men walked away together, the Count
conversed in a courtly manner; but Jeff failed to observe the fine
points of his manner and in fact had difficulty in giving him strict
attention. It seemed that he had so many other things on his mind.
X
The Governor’s luncheon proved to be in keeping with the dignity of his
office. In the long, beautiful dining room of the Castle a table for six
had been prepared; and six silent, oriental-looking natives, dressed
like house servants of old Russia, were in attendance. They had been
trained by exacting masters and according to certain methods in which
the noble Muscovite thoroughly believed, and though Jeff had been waited
upon all his life by the superior lackies that once graced the Old
South, he had never seen such unobtrusive, flawless service as this
tendered to him now. The table and buffet had been wrought by
cabinet-makers in an age when men put their souls into the work of their
hands, fashioned with a skill that now had died from the face of the
earth. This young Rebel was no backwoods boor, and he had known a great
deal of what was beautiful and fine, but he opened his eyes at these
things, and at the crystal and plate that gleamed on their polished
surfaces. The Governor had seen fit to honor him with his best.
In addition to this treasure there was food such as only a master
Russian chef could prepare, served in portions as was the memorial
custom: caviar and other sea food, crisp vegetables from the Governor’s
gardens, a brown roast of that incomparable wild meat, mountain sheep.
There was coffee black as nightshade; and after dessert, when all plate
was removed except certain goblets of crystal, there was liquid treasure
of such quality and in such abundance as only the Muscovite could
appreciate and understand. In the way of mental food there was bright
and witty conversation, largely in English, in compliment to the
American guest of honor; and there was certainly a brilliance and Old
World charm about the whole affair—something above and beyond the food
and service, even above and beyond the coffee and other liquids, which
was evidently in the air—that went a long way toward taking Jeff’s mind
off his troubles.
There were three guests besides himself and Yanovisk: Templeton the
Englishman, young Lord Staritsa, and—to Jeff’s immediate
embarrassment—a tall, distinguished-looking Russian with the scar of a
bullet wound in his cheek. Templeton was the same courteous,
self-confident gentleman that had complimented Jeff’s uniform the
preceding evening. The adventurer Staritsa, the general effect of whom
had been so unpleasant the night before and whose address had stopped
just short of actual insult, wore his company manners to-day; and Jeff
thought he had never met a more engaging young nobleman. His wit was
keen, his manner cordial, his whole demeanor flattering in the extreme.
And what might have proved a most awkward situation became, through
Karl’s seeming magnanimity and good breeding, an exceedingly pleasant
and convivial occasion. The Power behind the monopoly acted as if he had
completely forgotten the unfortunate incident of the preceding night.
Indeed, the entire company put itself out to be nice to the “special
correspondent” from America. He returned them the most cordial
appreciation. His spirits rose to an unprecedented height; and certain
troubling little doubts that had lately clouded his happiness faded and
disappeared. He was never so certain of the truth of his guiding
philosophy. He was confident he had misjudged Staritsa, and Baron Karl
too. He convinced himself that the old workman had given him an entirely
wrong picture of the Russian system. His talk became more gay and
fluent, his heart—the kindly, friendly, true-blue heart that blessed so
many Southern people—warmed to the occasion.
These were his kind of people, he told himself. It was with such as
these that he wanted to cast his fortune and live his life. Their ideals
were the only ideals worth fighting for; their code the right code. He
would go over to their side. He would not fight against them; rather, he
would tell them, in a few days more, his real mission in Alaska—and
thus perform a duty he owed to the South and to Southern friends.
The Governor was an imposing figure as he rose to offer the first toast
of obligation. Jeff eyed him with youthful enthusiasm. Though the man
spoke no English, the young Southerner understood the meaning of the
toast before Templeton echoed it in his own tongue.
“To the Czar!”
Jeff thrilled as every man present stood up, raised his glass and drank.
This was what made life worth living.
In the silence that followed Baron Karl’s pleasant voice rolled into the
room. “This glass must be drunk in honor of our distinguished
guest—from America. Is it not so, my friends? Shall it be—to the
President of the United States?”
“Perhaps that toast, though likely drunk with avidity, wouldn’t please
our guest as well as some other,” Templeton remarked easily. “Perhaps
you didn’t notice the uniform that Mr. Sharp wore last night, Karl. It
is true that he wore it for a masquerade, yet it permits us to guess
some of our friend’s past history. How would you like it, Mr. Sharp, if
we make this next toast not to the President—but to Dixie?”
Jeff raised his head, and every man at the table—including the
distinguished Russian Governor who spoke no English—knew that this shot
had gone home. His eyes flashed and his bold nostrils expanded as he
sprang to his feet. He towered above every man in the room except Karl
himself as he made his proud answer.
“That is _my_ first toast of obligation, Baron Karl! To the South, and
the things that the South stood for!”
After the clamor had died down Templeton leaned thoughtfully over the
table. “Baron Karl is of a nation who officially took the side of the
North during the war, Sharp,” said he, “and he, of course, does not
understand the situation the way we English do; but you can be sure that
personally he wanted the South to win. Almost every man of the noble
class in the whole world felt the same, and none of us can quite forgive
Alexander II for taking the opposite side. I think the fact will go down
in history against him.”
“How about Victoria?” Yanovisk asked, with a slight suggestion of heat.
“Her personal attitude showed that she didn’t want the Union broken up.
Of course her officials and the ruling class were strongly pro-Southern,
and to say that England was neutral during the war is to joke. Your
queen, on the other hand, was at least neutral if indeed she was not
pro-Union.”
“Monarchs have strange ideas, these days,” Karl observed. “They are more
liberal than the peasants.”
“You said one thing, in your toast, that I don’t fully understand,”
Templeton went on seriously. “You said ‘the things the South stood for,’
instead of ‘the things the South stands for.’ Am I to believe there is
any change in Southern sentiment since the war?”
“Mr. Templeton, I am sorry to say there is some slight evidence of it.
Occasionally you hear a man say—the older men who should know
better—that perhaps slavery was wrong; and in the long run it will be
better that we are still in the Union. There are some who are willing to
forgive and forget, looking upon the great war as something that might
have been avoided if there had not been hot-heads on both sides. There
are some of us, sir, who do not subscribe to those sentiments. We are
proud to say that we can never, never be a loyal part of the Union
again.”
“None of us blame you, you can be sure of that,” Baron Karl told him.
“We are all with you. Every one in Europe who stands for the old regime
instead of this new mob rule is firm on the side of you unconquered
ones.”
The company now drank the health of England’s queen, and as this third
glass began to warm him, to gladden his heart and to dull, slightly but
imperceptibly, certain delicate processes in his brain, a bold and
reckless idea came to this young Southerner at the Governor’s right. It
suddenly occurred to him that here, at this select little gathering, was
the fitting place to confess his real mission in Alaska. Here was his
chance, without waiting longer, to thwart the enemies of the South.
He was perfectly aware that his disclosures would create a profound
sensation. There would be no more laughter and care-free toasts at the
long table for this present hour at least; not one of them here dreamed
that negotiations between the President and the Czar were already
practically concluded; that Alaska was about to slip out of the
monopoly’s grasp. There would be no further delay in the conclusion of
the treaty between the Russian-American and the Hudson’s Bay companies,
no further haggling over terms. The result of his news would be that the
two great corporations would immediately reach an agreement, the former
would accept the Czar’s offer as to the renewal of its charter, and
Seward’s dream would not come true. Any hope of Alaska becoming United
States territory would be definitely given over. As Seward had
explained, England, the friend of the South, would fall naturally into
possession.
He had not planned to show his cards at least for a few days more,
taking time to scrutinize every detail of the situation; but that need
of caution was past. Why should he not act at once!
The idea brought a sparkle to his eye apart from that induced by heady
liquor; and he was quite pale from suppressed excitement. Had his great
moment arrived? Surely, there was nothing to gain by delay, and perhaps
everything to lose. The circumstances were not in the least open to
question. He had looked at the matter from all sides; and there was but
one answer. The chance had come to deal a stinging blow to the Union
that had crushed his beloved South; to repay England for her friendship
to the Southern cause—and only a coward would hesitate to act.
He was not obliged to nurse his hatred by remembrance of Southern
wrongs; ruin and ravishment and death. He felt no need of lashing
himself into a fervor in which he could blind himself to everything
except revenge. He was certain, now, where he stood. All doubts as to
his proper course were past. Here, at this table, were men who stood for
what he stood for, representatives of nations and governments who were
friends of the South, and to them he owed his loyalty. And now his hands
clenched, and his face flamed as his old zeal swept back to him.
No one could look at him and doubt his sincerity. However mistaken this
young Rebel might be, however biased and false his reasoning and his
standards, at this moment he was true to himself. He thought the way he
had chosen was the way of honor and manhood, of loyalty to his cause.
It was as if Fate had provided the occasion. Fate was on his side; it
was as if the luncheon had been arranged expressly for his convenience.
Here was Baron Karl, one of the chief owners of the Company and
consequently most deeply concerned in what was forthcoming. Here was
Prince Maksoutof, the Governor, Count Yanovisk his aid, and Staritsa, a
noble representative of the patrician class. The presence of Templeton
was a coincidence that definitely showed the hand of destiny in the
affair; Jeff did not doubt that he was an unofficial agent of England or
great English interests sent here to help engineer the proposed treaty
with the monopoly—in the largest sense of the term, an international
spy. Surely the moment had come to go over to his side. The Rebel would
renounce the Union for good and all.
“I have something to tell you,” he began; then, leaning forward in his
chair, he waited for a lull in the conversation so that he might be
heard by every one. He was now not interested in their talk. So intent
was he upon his purposes that he heard them but dimly; nor did he even
discern the subject of their conversation. His preoccupation was so deep
that it resembled the verge of sleep.
Presently his interest began to quicken. The fact now came home to him
that while he was deep in reflection the party had gone forward a pace.
The spirit of the affair had undergone a significant change. There was a
more familiar note in the conversation that passed back and forth;
speech was less guarded; the gentlemen spoke with an added fervor. Jeff
noticed that in his mental absence his glass had been filled with an
unfamiliar liquid—a cloudy white drink that burned his lips like
fire—but the glasses of his friends were empty. Plainly they were one
drink ahead of him.
This last libation evidently had been one of considerable potency,
because the spirit of the gathering was now one of recklessness rather
than of well-bred restraint. On the contrary, the effect of his own
three drinks seemed to be wearing off, due perhaps to his mental
activity of the moment before. The warmth and pleasant cordiality that
had blessed him had largely passed away; and he found himself
clear-headed and keen, able to give their remarks the most careful and
accurate consideration.
“Yes, we lost our great chance,” Templeton was saying. “We should have
got into the war at the outset. It was a smashing blow to us all.”
Of course he referred to the Civil War, still the evident subject of
conversation; and Templeton’s sentiment was one with which Jeff could
surely find no fault. Yet he found himself suddenly vaguely suspicious
and anxious to hear more. He sensed that there was something besides
love of the South and sorrow for the lost Southern cause in Templeton’s
sincere regrets as to the outcome of the war.
“But how could you get into it, with your queen neutral or pro-North,
and your common people all hoping to see the Union stand?” Yanovisk
asked.
“Oh, our queen is a fool—sometimes. Like your own Czar, championing the
people against us. You know it’s the truth. They are so secure in
themselves, these monarchs, that they have turned liberal, seeing the
peasant point of view before they see ours. Our common people would
naturally be in favor of the North, simply because they are enamored
with the idea of popular government. That ought to show you our danger,
Yanovisk. You ask me how we could have managed to get in on the Southern
side. It would have been easy enough if we had all put our shoulders to
the wheel—the noble class in your country and mine. Propaganda will do
wonders. We almost succeeded in England; you failed miserably and offset
all the work we did.”
“The trouble with us was that some of our crowd could not see how we
were concerned,” Baron Karl observed. “As you say, Templeton, it was a
most good, a most fortunate chance to smash—what you say?—sky-high the
whole republican idea; but my friends did not have intelligence to seize
it. Naturally the idea of helping the South was nothing to them any more
than to you, Templeton, or to me—what did we care about their state
rights, and their self rule, and all the rest of it.”
Jeff, listening keenly, started ever so slightly; but raising his glass,
he gave no further sign that he was attentive.
“But you see that was the argument we had to go on,” Templeton argued.
“We couldn’t tell the people that we wanted them to go to war so we
could keep them under our thumbs later. We had to make them feel that we
really cared what happened to a few sentimental provinces south of the
Mason and Dixon line. My friends, the internal squabble of the Republic
was the monarchies’ opportunity. If we had done what we should—I mean
by ‘we’ the noble class in your country and mine, and in France—this
liberty-equality idea of which we hear so much would have had a setback
it couldn’t recover from in a thousand years, simply because the
republic idea would have proved a failure. By this time, there would be
two or three other civil wars, the Southwest possibly breaking off from
the Southeast, and the Northwest seceding from New England. The movement
toward liberty and democracy would have been definitely checked. Our
people would see that countries can’t get along without a king—and
without a noble class. This new power of America would be broken to
fragments. And then—what a chance for international spoil!”
“For the safety of the English people, her Majesty would be obliged to
‘establish a protectorate’ over the States adjoining the Canadian line,”
Yanovisk suggested with a grin.
“England would have to hurry to get ahead of Russia,” Templeton laughed.
“The Czar’s advisors would persuade him that the safety of his kingdom
demanded the expansion of his American possessions. Washington
territory, perhaps; maybe the entire American Northwest.”
“The wabbling French king of Mexico would be glad to establish himself
firmly by an increase of Mexican territory,” young Staritsa remarked.
“Of course he would take California, all the Southwest territories, and
Texas. The French Crown would receive added prestige, and my yearly
visits to Paris would not be haunted with the fear of another
revolution.”
“Yes, our friends in France would never need fear the return of the
Republic,” Baron Karl remarked. “But gentlemen, in our partition of
America, we have forgotten its very garden.” Then, speaking rapidly in
French, “What lucky nation would take over the South itself?”
The noble Russian could not dream that the man at the Governor’s right,
evidently half-drunk and toying with his glass of vodka, had the least
gleam of his meaning. French was the tongue of courts, Greek to the
rail-splitting Indian fighters of America. The loud laugh that greeted
his question was in compliment to his cleverness; it was quite diverting
to discuss the dismemberment of a country in the presence of one of its
patriots.
But the Southerner had not failed to understand. His knowledge of French
had declined greatly since his school days, but now his mind was so
active, and for all his seeming indifference so intent upon this amazing
conversation, that he not only understood the Russian’s remark, but
interpreted correctly all the talk that followed. He was never more
sober in his life. The effect of the three drinks had miraculously
passed away. His memory was sharpened and alert, and he recognized
French words that he thought he had forgotten long ago.
“Yes, who will take over the South!” Staritsa echoed, laughing
immoderately. “Of course if we fought on the Southern side we would be
entitled to look out for its welfare. I met a lovely lady once, on
shipboard, from Virginia. I would insist that Russia take Virginia. You
could have all the rest.”
“The Southern gentlemen would be allowed to gather cotton beside their
own former slaves,” was Karl’s next sally.
“None of you should have any of it,” Templeton informed the party. “You
know what country depends on cotton—England would have to keep the
South for herself!” His laugh ended with an oath. “But we are talking
moonshine, and you know it. The Civil War is over. The Union is stronger
than it ever was—at least it will be when the war-hatred begins to pass
away. We lost our chance. It won’t be long till we have a people’s
government in our own countries—for that matter, the House of Lords is
loosing prestige every year. A man can poach rabbits on my place in
Devonshire, and can I hang him to the first oak? I can not; I do well to
get him a year’s sentence in jail. The old days of privilege are gone—I
am afraid not to return. We won’t be able to hold the people down like
we used to. We’d better leave this, and remember our guest.”
All laughter had died away when Templeton ceased speaking. The stately
dining room was now oddly quiet. Smiling brilliantly, Staritsa turned to
the guest of honor.
“I’m afraid we interrupted you, a few minutes ago,” he said in English.
“We got to talking about the greatness of your country; and I fear we
were rude, yes? You said you had something to tell us—”
Jeff looked him in the eyes. “It was nothing of importance,” said he.
“It was not worth the attention of the company.”