DECENT BURIAL
To-morrow? ’Tis not ours to know
That we again shall see the flowers.
To-morrow is the gods’—but, oh!
To day is ours.
—C.E. Merrill, Jr.
Claiborne called Oscar through the soft dusk of the April evening. The
phalanx of stars marched augustly across the heavens. Claiborne lifted
his face gratefully to the cool night breeze, for he was worn with the
stress and anxiety of the day, and there remained much to do. The
bungalow had been speedily transformed into a hospital. One nurse,
borrowed from a convalescent patient at the Springs, was to be reinforced
by another summoned by wire from Washington. The Ambassador’s demand
to be allowed to remove Armitage to his own house at the Springs had been
promptly rejected by the surgeon. A fever had hold of John Armitage, who
was ill enough without the wound in his shoulder, and the surgeon moved
his traps to the bungalow and took charge of the case. Oscar had brought
Claiborne’s bag, and all was now in readiness for the night.
Oscar’s erect figure at salute and his respectful voice brought Claiborne
down from the stars.
“We can get rid of the prisoners to-night—yes?”
“At midnight two secret service men will be here from Washington to
travel with them to Baltimore to their boat. The Baron and my father
arranged it over the telephone from the Springs. The prisoners understand
that they are in serious trouble, and have agreed to go quietly. The
government agents are discreet men. You brought up the buckboard?”
“But the men should be hanged—for they shot our captain, and he may
die.”
The little man spoke with sad cadence. A pathos in his erect, sturdy
figure, his lowered tone as he referred to Armitage, touched Claiborne.
“He will get well, Oscar. Everything will seem brighter to-morrow. You
had better sleep until it is time to drive to the train.”
Oscar stepped nearer and his voice sank to a whisper.
“I have not forgotten the tall man who died; it is not well for him to go
unburied. You are not a Catholic—no?”
“You need not tell me how—or anything about it—but you are sure he is
quite dead?”
“He is dead; he was a bad man, and died very terribly,” said Oscar, and
he took off his hat and drew his sleeve across his forehead. “I will tell
you just how it was. When my horse took the wall and got their bullets
and tumbled down dead, the big man they called Zmai saw how it was, that
we were all coming over after them, and ran. He kept running through the
brambles and over the stones, and I thought he would soon turn and we
might have a fight, but he did not stop; and I could not let him get
away. It was our captain who said, ‘We must take them prisoners,’ was it
not so?”
“Yes; that was Mr. Armitage’s wish.”
“Then I saw that we were going toward the bridge, the one they do not
use, there at the deep ravine. I had crossed it once and knew that it was
weak and shaky, and I slacked up and watched him. He kept on, and just
before he came to it, when I was very close to him, for he was a slow
runner—yes? being so big and clumsy, he turned and shot at me with his
revolver, but he was in a hurry and missed; but he ran on. His feet
struck the planks of the bridge with a great jar and creaking, but he
kept running and stumbled and fell once with a mad clatter of the planks.
He was a coward with a heart of water, and would not stop when I called,
and come back for a little fight. The wires of the bridge hummed and
the bridge swung and creaked. When he was almost midway of the bridge the
big wires that held it began to shriek out of the old posts that held
them—though I had not touched them—and it seemed many years that passed
while the whole of it dangled in the air like a bird-nest in a storm; and
the creek down below laughed at that big coward. I still heard his hoofs
thumping the planks, until the bridge dropped from under him and left him
for a long second with his arms and legs flying in the air. Yes; it was
very horrible to see. And then his great body went down, down—God! It
was a very dreadful way for a wicked man to die.”
And Oscar brushed his hat with his sleeve and looked away at the purple
and gray ridges and their burden of stars.
“Yes, it must have been terrible,” said Claiborne.
“But now he can not be left to lie down there on the rocks, though he was
so wicked and died like a beast. I am a bad Catholic, but when I was a
boy I used to serve mass, and it is not well for a man to lie in a wild
place where the buzzards will find him.”
“But you can not bring a priest. Great harm would be done if news of this
affair were to get abroad. You understand that what has passed here must
never be known by the outside world. My father and Baron von Marhof have
counseled that, and you may be sure there are reasons why these things
must be kept quiet, or they would seek the law’s aid at once.”
“Yes; I have been a soldier; but after this little war I shall bury the
dead. In an hour I shall be back to drive the buckboard to Lamar
station.”
Claiborne looked at his watch.
“I will go with you,” he said.
They started through the wood toward the Port of Missing Men; and
together they found rough niches in the side of the gap, down which they
made their way toilsomely to the boulder-lined stream that laughed and
tumbled foamily at the bottom of the defile. They found the wreckage of
the slender bridge, broken to fragments where the planking had struck the
rocks. It was very quiet in the mountain cleft, and the stars seemed
withdrawn to newer and deeper arches of heaven as they sought in the
debris for the Servian. They kindled a fire of twigs to give light for
their search, and soon found the great body lying quite at the edge of
the torrent, with arms flung out as though to ward off a blow. The face
twisted with terror and the small evil eyes, glassed in death, were not
good to see.
“He was a wicked man, and died in sin. I will dig a grave for him by
these bushes.”
When the work was quite done, Oscar took off his hat and knelt down by
the side of the strange grave and bowed his head in silence for a moment.
Then he began to repeat words and phrases of prayers he had known
as a peasant boy in a forest over seas, and his voice rose to a kind of
chant. Such petitions of the Litany of the Saints as he could recall he
uttered, his voice rising mournfully among the rocks.
_“From all evil; from all sin; from Thy wrath; from sudden and unprovided
death, O Lord, deliver us!”_
Then he was silent, though in the wavering flame of the fire Claiborne
saw that his lips still muttered prayers for the Servian’s soul. When
again his words grew audible he was saying:
_“—That Thou wouldst not deliver it into the hand of the enemy, nor
forget it unto the end, out wouldst command it to be received by the Holy
Angels, and conducted to paradise, its true country; that, as in Thee it
hath hoped and believed, it may not suffer the pains of hell, but may
take possession of eternal joys.”_
He made the sign of the cross, rose, brushed the dirt from his knees and
put on his hat.
“He was a coward and died an ugly death, but I am glad I did not kill
him.”
“Yes, we were spared murder,” said Claiborne; and when they had trodden
out the fire and scattered the embers into the stream, they climbed the
steep side of the gap and turned toward the bungalow. Oscar trudged
silently at Claiborne’s side, and neither spoke. Both were worn to the
point of exhaustion by the events of the long day; the stubborn patience
and fidelity of the little man touched a chord in Claiborne. Almost
unconsciously he threw his arm across Oscar’s shoulders and walked thus
beside him as they traversed the battle-field of the morning.
“You knew Mr. Armitage when he was a boy?” asked Claiborne.
“Yes; in the Austrian forest, on his father’s place—the Count Ferdinand
von Stroebel. The young captain’s mother died when he was a child; his
father was the great statesman, and did much for the Schomburgs and
Austria; but it did not aid his disposition—no?”
The secret service men had come by way of the Springs, and were waiting
at the bungalow to report to Claiborne. They handed him a sealed packet
of instructions from the Secretary of War. The deportation of Chauvenet
and Durand was to be effected at once under Claiborne’s direction, and he
sent Oscar to the stables for the buckboard and sat down on the veranda
to discuss the trip to Baltimore with the two secret agents. They were to
gather up the personal effects of the conspirators at the tavern on the
drive to Lamar. The rooms occupied by Chauvenet at Washington had already
been ransacked and correspondence and memoranda of a startling character
seized. Chauvenet was known to be a professional blackmailer and plotter
of political mischief, and the embassy of Austria-Hungary had identified
Durand as an ex-convict who had only lately been implicated in the
launching of a dangerous issue of forged bonds in Paris. Claiborne had
been carefully coached by his father, and he answered the questions of
the officers readily:
“If these men give you any trouble, put them under arrest in the nearest
jail. We can bring them back here for attempted murder, if nothing worse;
and these mountain juries will see that they’re put away for a long time.
You will accompany them on board the _George W. Custis_, and stay with
them until you reach Cape Charles. A lighthouse tender will follow the
steamer down Chesapeake Bay and take you off. If these gentlemen do not
give the proper orders to the captain of the steamer, you will put them
all under arrest and signal the tender.”
Chauvenet and Durand had been brought out and placed in the buckboard,
and these orders were intended for their ears.
“We will waive our right to a writ of _habeas corpus_,” remarked Durand
cheerfully, as Claiborne flashed a lantern over them. “Dearest Jules, we
shall not forget Monsieur Claiborne’s courteous treatment of us.”
“Shut up!” snapped Chauvenet.
“You will both of you do well to hold your tongues,” remarked Claiborne
dryly. “One of these officers understands French, and I assure you they
can not be bought or frightened. If you try to bolt, they will certainly
shoot you. If you make a row about going on board your boat at Baltimore,
remember they are government agents, with ample authority for any
emergency, and that Baron von Marhof has the American State Department at
his back.”
“You are wonderful, Captain Claiborne,” drawled Durand.
“There is no trap in this? You give us the freedom of the sea?” demanded
Chauvenet.
“I gave you the option of a Virginia prison for conspiracy to murder, or
a run for your life in your own boat beyond the Capes. You have chosen
the second alternative; if you care to change your decision—”
Oscar gathered up the reins and waited for the word. Claiborne held his
watch to the lantern.
“We must not miss our train, my dear Jules!” said Durand.
“Bah, Claiborne! this is ungenerous of you. You know well enough this is
an unlawful proceeding—kidnapping us this way—without opportunity for
counsel.”
“And without benefit of clergy,” laughed Claiborne. “Is it a dash for the
sea, or the nearest county jail? If you want to tackle the American
courts, we have nothing to venture. The Winkelried crowd are safe behind
the bars in Vienna, and publicity can do us no harm.”
“Drive on!” ejaculated Chauvenet.
As the buckboard started, Baron von Marhof and Judge Claiborne rode up,
and watched the departure from their saddles.
“That’s the end of one chapter,” remarked Judge Claiborne.
“They’re glad enough to go,” said Dick. “What’s the latest word from
Vienna?”
“The conspirators were taken quietly; about one hundred arrests have been
made in all, and the Hungarian uprising has played out utterly—thanks to
Mr. John Armitage,” and the Baron sighed and turned toward the bungalow.
When the two diplomats rode home half an hour later, it was with the
assurance that Armitage’s condition was satisfactory.
“He is a hardy plant,” said the surgeon, “and will pull through.”