THE STORM-CLOUDS GATHER.
Señor Don Alfredo Chester, as the boy aviators’ father was known in
Nicaragua, sat in a grass chair on the cool patio of his dazzlingly
whitewashed hacienda on his plantation of La Merced. He thoughtfully
smoked a long black cigar of native tobacco as he reclined. The lazy
smoke from his weed curled languidly up toward the sparkling sapphire
sky of the Nicaraguan dry season, which had just begun; but the thoughts
of Planter Chester did not follow the writhing column.
Nor had he in fact any eye for the scene that stretched for miles about
him, although it was one of perfect tropic beauty and luxuriance.
Refreshed by the long rainy season which here endures from April to
December everything glittered with a fresh, crisp green that contrasted
delightfully with the occasional jeweled radiance of some
gorgeously-plumaged bird flashing across a shaft of sunlight like a
radiant streak of lightning. These brilliant apparitions vanished in the
darker shades of the luxuriant growth like very spirits of the jungle.
The dense tangle of rank greenery that surrounded the plantation, like a
conservatory run wild, held, however, far more dangerous inhabitants
than these gaudy birds. In its depths lurked the cruel but beautiful
ocelots—prettiest and most treacherous of the cat family. Jaguars of
huge size,—and magnificently spotted,—hung in its tree limbs, on the
lookout for monkeys, fat wild hogs, or an occasional philosophic tapir.
And here too in the huge trees, whose branches afforded homes for a host
of multi-colored orchids lurked the deadly coral snake with its vivid
checkerings of red and black and the red and yellow blood snake, the
bite of either of which is as instantaneously fatal as a bullet through
the heart.
From where the hacienda stood—high on the side of a steep hill on whose
flanks waved everywhere the graceful broad fronds of the banana—could be
obtained a distant glimpse of the Caribbean, flashing a deep sapphire as
it hurled its huge swells thundering shoreward. It was on this
occasional gleaming glimpse far down the San Juan valley that Señor
Chester’s gaze was fixed as he thoughtfully enjoyed his cigar.
It was easy to see from even a casual glance at Mr. Chester’s strong
face that his boys had inherited from him in undiminished measure the
keen intellectuality that showed there, as well as the vigorous nervous
frame and general impression of mental and physical power that the man
gave out. It was on these boys of his that his mind was fixed at that
moment. They were then by his calculations about a day away from
Greytown, although as the _Aztec_ made usually a good many ports of call
on her way down the coast it was only a rough guess at her whereabouts.
As he sat on his patio that afternoon Mr. Chester would have given all
he possessed to have had it in his power at that minute to have been
able to keep his boys in New York, but it was too late for that now.
When it was arranged that they were going to visit him to display to his
proud eyes the _Golden Eagle_ that had made them famous, neither he, nor
any other of the American planters, dreamed that the revolution was so
near. So much talk had preceded it that it seemed hard to realize that
it was really on and that life and property were in real danger. Some of
the editors who write so blithely of comic opera revolutions, should
visit Central America during one of them. They would sustain a change of
heart.
In common with his brother planters he was heartily in sympathy with the
reactionaries, although of course he could not honorably take an active
part in the revolution as the United States and Nicaragua were nominally
at peace. At Washington, however, the trend of affairs was even then
being watched more closely than they guessed.
If the revolution succeeded it meant fair treatment and equitable taxes
for the American planters and business men of the republic, if it
failed—well, as he had expressed it a few days before at a sort of
informal meeting of half-a-dozen influential planters—“We might as well
shut up shop.”
Another piece of disquieting news which had come to him by cable from
New York, and which had set the reactionaries and their secret friends
in a frenzy, was the announcement of the murder of Dr. Moneague. As his
mind reverted to this subject there was a sound of wheels on the steep
drive leading up the hill to the house, and an old-fashioned chariot
hung on C. springs, driven by an aged negro, in livery as old as
himself, it seemed, drove up with a great flourish.
Señor Chester sprang to his feet hat in hand as it came to a halt, for
beside the dignified looking old Spaniard, who occupied one side of its
luxuriously-cushioned seat, there sat a young woman of the most dazzling
type of the famous Castilian beauty.
“Can usta usted, Señor Chester,” exclaimed the old man, with a courteous
bow full of old-fashioned grace, as the proprietor of La Merced ranch,
hat in hand after the Spanish custom, approached the carriage. “We are
going down to Restigue and dropped in here by the way to see if you are
still alive, it is so long since you have favored us with a visit. Not
since this glorious strike for liberty was made, in fact.”
“When do you expect those wonderful boys of yours?” he went on, “whose
doings, you see, even we have heard of in this out-of-the-way corner of
the earth.”
“Indeed, Señor Chester,” said the young woman at the yellow old Don’s
side, “you must bring them to see us the very minute they arrive. My
husband—Don Ramon—” she sighed.
“Brave Don Ramon,” supplemented her father, “a man in the field fighting
at the head of his troops for his country is to be envied. The name of
General Pachecho was not unknown when I was younger, but now—” he broke
off with a quizzical smile full of the pathos of the involuntary
inactivity of age.
“When Don Ramon returns triumphant from the field he can do better than
merely discuss his favorite subject of aviation with my boys,” proudly
remarked Señor Chester, “he can see the _Golden Eagle_ itself. Let us
hope that he will introduce it into the new army of the hoped for
republic of Estrada.”
“Viva Estrada!” cried the girl, and her aged father; caught with common
enthusiasm at the name of Zelaya’s foe.
“I only wish, though,” said Señor Chester, with a half sigh, “that the
country was more settled. For us it is all right. But, you see, their
mother——”
“Ah, the heart of a woman, it bleeds for her sons, is it not so?” cried
Señora Ruiz, in her emotional Spanish manner.
“But, Señor Chester, never fear,” she continued. “My husband will not
let the troops of Zelaya drive Estrada’s forces as far to the east as
this.”
“But this is the hot-bed of the revolutionary movement. Zelaya has
declared he will lay it waste,” objected the planter.
“While Don Ramon Ruiz leads the reactionary troops,” proudly retorted
the woman with feverish enthusiasm, “Zelaya will never reach Restigue or
La Merced or the Rancho del Pachecho.”
“Where the torch is laid, who can tell how far the fire will run?”
remarked the Don, with true Spanish love of a proverb.
“Oh, don’t let’s think of such things!” suddenly exclaimed Señora Ruiz,
“we revolutionists will be in Managua in a month. Oh, that Zelaya—bah.
He is a terrible man. I met him at a ball at Managua a year ago. When he
took my hand I shivered as if I had touched a toad or a centipede. He
looked at me in a way that made me tremble.”
Both his visitors declined Señor Chester’s courteous invitation to enter
the dark sala and partake of a cup of the native chocolate as prepared
by his mocho, or man servant.
“It grows late, Señor,” said the old Spaniard, “like my life the sun is
declining. Oh, that I should have lived to have heard of the death of
brave Moneague! You know of it?”
A nod from Chester assured him. He went on:
“When he went to New York alone to collect revolutionary funds, I told
them it was foolish, but I was old, and there were many who would not
listen. Peste! how foolhardy to give him the parchment with the mystic
plans on it. The secret of the lost mines of King Quetzalcoatl are worth
more than one man’s life and have indeed cost many.”
“Do you mean that Dr. Moneague had the plans of the mines with him when
he was killed?” quickly asked Señor Chester. “I always thought the mines
were a native fable.”
“The young think many things that are not so,” was the old Don’s reply.
“No, my son, Dr. Moneague did not have the plans of the mines themselves
but he had what was as good, he had the bit of parchment on which—in the
lost symbols of the Toltecs—the secret of the long lost paths by which
the precious metals were brought to the coast was inscribed. He spent
his life at this work of deciphering the hieroglyphics of that
mysterious race, and he solved them; but, brave man, he was willing to
yield up the secret of his life work if for it he could get money enough
to save his country. You knew that his visit to New York was to see if
he could not induce one of your American millionaires to give us funds?”
“I guessed it,” was the brief reply. “But why, if he knew the secret of
the mines, did he not go there himself?”
“He went there once; but you who have lived long in this country know
that, under Zelaya’s cruel rule he would have been worse than foolhardy
to have brought out any of the miraculous wealth stored there. If Zelaya
had heard of it he would have wrung the secret from him by torturing his
children before his eyes.”
Shaking with excitement the old patriot gave a querulous order to the
aged coachman to drive on, and waved his thin yellow hand in farewell.
Señor Chester stood long watching the dust of his visitor’s carriage as
it rose from the banana-fringed road that zig-zagged down the mountain
side. At last he turned away and entering the house emerged a few
minutes later with a light poncho thrown over his shoulders.
The chill of the breeze that sets seaward in the tropics at twilight had
already sprung up and in the jungle the myriad screaming, booming,
chirping voices of the jungle night had begun to awaken.
Chester made his way slowly to a small, whitewashed structure a short
distance removed from the main hacienda. As he swung open the door and
struck a light a strange scene presented itself—doubly strange when
considered as an adjunct of a banana planter’s residence. On shelves and
racks extending round the room were test tubes and retorts full and
empty. The floor was a litter of scribbled calculations, carboys of
acid, broken bottles, straw and in one corner stood an annealing forge.
Here Señor Chester amused himself. He had formerly been a mining
engineer and was as fond of scientific experimentation as were his sons.
Stepping to a rack he took from it a tube filled with an opaque liquid.
He stepped to the doorway to hold it up to the fading light in order to
ascertain what changes had taken place in its contents since the
morning.
He almost dropped it, iron-nerved man as he was, as a piercing shriek
from the barracks inhabited by the plantation workers rent the evening
hush of the plantation.
The noise grew louder and louder. It seemed that a hundred voices took
up the cry. It grew nearer and as it did so resolved itself into its
component parts of women’s shrill cries and the deep gruff exclamations
of men much worked up.
Suddenly a man burst out of the dense banana growth that grew almost up
to Señor Chester’s laboratory. He was a wild and terrifying figure. His
broad brimmed straw hat was bloodied and through the crown a bullet had
torn its way. A black ribbon, on which was roughly chalked “Viva
Estrada!” hung in a grotesque loop at the side of his face.
His clothes, a queer attempt at regimentals consisting of white duck
trousers and an old band-master’s coat, hung in ribbons revealing his
limbs, scratched and torn by his flight through the jungle. He had no
rifle, but carried an old machete with which he had hacked his way home
through the dense bush paths.
The master of La Merced recognized him at once as Juan Batista, a
ne’er-do-weel stable hand, who had deserted his wife and three children
two weeks before for the patriotic purpose of joining Estrada’s army,
and incidentally enriching himself by loot. He had attached himself to
General Ruiz’s division.
“Well, Juan! Speak up! What is it?” demanded his master sharply. Juan
groveled in the dust. He mumbled in Spanish and a queer jargon of his
own; thought by him to be correct English.
“Get back there!” shouted Señor Chester to the crowd of wailing women
and scared natives from the quarters that pressed around. They fell back
obediently.
“What is all this, Blakely?” asked Chester impatiently, as Jimmie
Blakely, the young English overseer, strolled up as unruffled as if he
had been playing tennis.
“Scat!” said Jimmie waving his arm at the crowd and then, adjusting his
eyeglass, he remarked:
“It seems that Estrada’s chaps have had a jolly good licking.”
“What!” exclaimed the planter, “this is serious. Speak up, Juan, at
once. Where is General Ruiz?”
It was with a sinking heart that Chester heard the answer as the thought
what the news would mean to the radiant beauty he had been talking with
but a short time before, flashed across his mind.
“Muerto! muerto!” wailed the prostrate Juan, “dead! dead!”
At this, although they didn’t understand it, the women set up a great
howl of terror.
“Oh Zelaya is coming! He will kill us and eat our babies! Oh master save
us—don’t let Zelaya’s men eat our babies.”
The men blubbered and cried as much as the women, but from a different
and more selfish reason.
“Oh, they will kill us too and spoil all our land. The land we have
grown with so much care,” they bemoaned in piercing tones, “moreover, we
shall be forced to join the army and be killed in battle.”
“Blakely, for heaven’s sake take that bit of glass out of your eye, and
get this howling mob out of here!” besought Chester desperately. “If you
don’t I’ll kill some of them myself. Here you, get up,” he exclaimed
bestowing a most unmerciful kick on the still prostrate Juan. “Oh, for a
few Americans—or Englishmen,” he added, out of deference to Blakely.
“Couldn’t do a thing with them without the eyeglass, Mr. Chester,”
drawled the imperturbable Blakely, “they think it’s witchcraft. Don’t
twig how the dickens I keep it in.”
“All right, all right, meet me here at the house and we must hold a
council of war, as soon as you’ve got them herded safe in the barracks,”
impatiently said Chester, turning on his heel.
“Now come on, you gibbering idiots,” shouted the consolatory Briton at
his band of weeping men and women, “come on now—get out of here, or I’ll
eat your blooming babies myself—my word I will,” and the amiable Jimmie
put on such a terrifying expression that his charges fled before him too
terrified to make any more noise.
Out of sight of the governor, however, the Hon. Jimmie’s careless manner
dropped.
“Well, this is a jolly go and no mistake;” he muttered, giving the
groveling Juan a kick, where it would do the most good, “well, Jimmie—my
boy—you’ve always been looking for a bit of row and it looks as if you’d
jolly well put your foot in it this time—eh, what?”
While all this transpired on the ranchero El Merced, the _Aztec_ with
our heroes on board surprised everybody in Greytown, and no one more
than her captain, by arriving there ahead of time. Just about the time
that the Hon. Jimmie was herding his weeping charges to the barracks,
her mud-hook rattled down and she swung at anchor off the first really
tropical town on which the Boy Aviators’ eyes had ever rested.