At last Strawbridge's adventure had come to a focus. He sat, galled and
dusty, on his English mount and stared at the distant metallic gleam
which encircled the southern and western segments of the horizon. That
thin, shining arc was the junction of the Orinoco and the Rio Negro.
Against its shimmer arose a single spire, so tiny and so far away that
the drummer had to scrutinize it with particularity before he could
make it out at all. So this was the upshot of all their riding and
burning and thirsting--for these sweat-caked peons to advance against a
church steeple!
Half a dozen different impressions clamored for the American's
attention. Just behind him officers were barking their soldiers
into two squads. A little farther to the rear, the men were pulling
themselves from their wives and mistresses, to join the ranks again.
There was something elemental and unashamed in the passion of their
parting. They were much the same color as the sand they trod. They
might have been figures sprung out of the heat and travail of the
melancholy llanos, as indeed they were. They clung to each other,
these earth-colored peons; they sobbed, they kissed each other with
unrestraint, absorbed in their griefs. There was something wide and
impersonal in this passionate outpouring of their misery. They were
mummers depicting completely what every lover feels on parting with his
love. Some inhibition, some reserve seemed to melt in Strawbridge's
mind, and with a trembling tenderness he thought of the señora. He
could see her delicate face looking at him sorrowfully. Such a sense
of pathos filled him that he wondered if it did not forbode some evil
to him. Perhaps he was about to be killed; else why should the señora's
sad face appear to him so vividly?
Strawbridge became aware of a horseman coming up, on his left. It was
Coronel Saturnino, his face a mask of dust. For once the colonel seemed
keen and alive. His black eyes, in this dust mask, were full of fire,
but the dusty mouth was set in its inevitable sardonic quirk.
"I rode over to suggest that you hang a carbine to your saddle." He
smiled.
Strawbridge looked down at his pommel doubtfully.
"I thought perhaps if I went in as a neutral--"
"_Pues_, you are likely not to come out at all."
"Then you think I had better carry a gun?"
"It's safer." The colonel beckoned a soldier to him and gave an order
that sent the man to the rear, to return presently with a carbine for
Strawbridge. While the peon strapped it to the drummer's saddle, the
colonel's black eyes, with their look of chronic amusement, passed over
his recruits.
"These peons are going out to fight for their freedom," he observed
with his tone of satire. "They are perpetually going out to fight for
their freedom. Different saviors rise up--a Miedo, a Fombombo. Now it
is Saturnino, and only the Holy Virgin knows who next will be leading
these tatterdemalions to freedom!" With sardonic wrinkles in his dust
mask he looked at the drummer.
Strawbridge tried to shift his leg so it would not touch the hard
carbine. He was somehow incensed at Saturnino's tone.
"What better thing can they fight for than their freedom?"
The colonel shrugged.
"Probably nothing. It makes a very exciting game for gentlemen--these
peons wanting to be free. What finer thing could a peon do than to
entertain a _caballero_?"
Strawbridge stared at the dust mask.
"Good God, Saturnino! Is that all this is to you?--an entertainment, a
game?"
The officer shrugged again.
"_Pues_, of course it isn't business." He paused with a quizzical
look, and then went on: "But what I really rode over to tell you is, I
am dividing the men into two squadrons. I will lead one in a frontal
attack on the _casa fuerte_. The other, Lieutenant Rosales will lead
around by the river. It will make its way through the wharves and
attack the _casa fuerte_ from the rear."
Strawbridge had become attentive, and nodded to these plans.
"You may go along with either of the parties," invited the colonel, "or
you may stay here with the women until the fight is over."
"No, certainly not! I'll go by the river," chose Strawbridge, at once.
The colonel nodded, and smiled once again through his grime.
"As you will; and may luck wait on your courage! _Adios!_"
The two men reached across the necks of their stolen horses and shook
hands.
"Same to you, colonel, and so long," said the drummer, somewhat moved.
Saturnino suddenly jerked his horse in a curvette, and saluted easily
as the big English animal plunged with him back toward his line.
The drummer turned his own mount and rode toward Rosales's column.
Lieutenant Rosales was a smallish, sharp-featured youth whose eyes were
surrounded with such dark rings that they showed through the dust.
Strawbridge remembered having seen him before, in the plaza. Now he was
going to fight under this little _roué_, perhaps die under his command.
He felt as if he were going to fight with a crowd of street gamins. It
was a mean adventure.
The men under Rosales sat stolid and quiet on their mules and horses.
Saturnino's sarcasm revisited the drummer's mind: "These peons are
perpetually fighting for their freedom, under this savior and that.
They've been at it upward of four centuries. Now I'm leading them," and
he had laughed.
A gust of pity shivered through the American's bowels for these stolid
men, arming and seeking a leader for four centuries, and led by
Saturnino, a man to whom their travail was a game!
At that moment the sickly-looking officer whipped out his sword and
barked an order, and the next moment the cavalry set off at a gallop
through the heat and dust. The drummer fell into the ranks. He twisted
in his saddle for any easement he could find. His carbine added a new
pain to his riding. It banged his thigh with a strange adroitness.
Within ten or fifteen minutes a dust rose up among so many galloping
horses which made the air almost unbreathable. These petty tortures so
harassed the drummer that he looked forward to actual fighting as a
relief. To avoid the dust he swung his horse out of line and spurred
him to the van of the column. By the time the American was even with
Lieutenant Rosales, he had reached clean breathing, and he expanded his
lungs with a sense of great relief. But the peons, the dirt-colored
men who after four hundred years of rebellion were now playing Coronel
Saturnino's game, these peons rode resolutely in the heat and dust
without breaking line. The thin-faced officer with the black circles
about his eyes stared fixedly ahead.
Presently the troopers galloped up another long swell in the desert,
and when they reached its crest Strawbridge was shocked to see how
close they were upon the city of San Geronimo. He could see the red
roofs of the adobes, a wireless tower run up like a spider-web, and the
very bells in the campanile. Around the street entrances were swarms of
people in a state of excitement. Some rushed into their houses; others
went flying into the llanos--straggling figures bound for no other goal
than to escape the coming storm.
Strawbridge watched the scene curiously, as if he were some idle
spectator. Presently Rosales drew his sword, swung his men out of line
with the main entrance, and veered toward the west, toward the stretch
of water which was growing more and more enormous as they approached it.
Horses and mules, on they went, faster and faster. There was a wide
space between the town and the river, to give play to the overflow in
the rainy season. Into this space Rosales headed. The hoofs of the
cavalcade made a dull drumming in the sand. Far down the river bank,
opposite the business part of town, Strawbridge could see the big
freight goletas from Trinidad and Ciudad Bolívar, hastily making sail
to escape the tempest.
Suddenly, from somewhere over on their right, came a hard blow in the
air. The flat plains lent no resonance. It was simply a crash--a sharp,
terrific impact. It was followed by another, by twos and threes, by
some indeterminable number. They hammered terrifically at Strawbridge's
ear-drums with a sense of devastating power. The Federals in the _casa
fuerte_ were cannonading Coronel Saturnino.
The cannonading must have been an agreed signal between the colonel and
Rosales. At its roar the lieutenant yelped at his men and flung his
column headlong into the open space along the wharves of San Geronimo.
Strawbridge went with them. He rode inexpertly, swaying dangerously on
his English mount. With his left hand he jerked at his carbine, trying
to get it out of its holster, with his right he clung to the pommel of
his saddle. He peered ahead, and the whole wharf-side seemed rushing at
him, shaken by the terrific vibrations of the horse. The few stragglers
left in sight skurried about to avoid the cavalry charge. Far ahead,
puffs of smoke came out at barred windows in the adobes. At that moment
the rumble of hoofs in the sand turned into a crashing clatter. The
horses had struck the cobblestones of the wharf. An increased heat from
the glare of the hot cobbles pinched the drummer. More smoke puffs blew
out at the windows. It occurred to the drummer that these were peons
firing on the cavalry.
A long row of palms were planted straight down the middle of the
_playa_. As these palms vibrated toward him, the drummer glimpsed the
head and shoulders of a man, pointing a rifle, high up in a clump of
leaves. A little thrill went over him. He swung his carbine toward the
figure.
"Hey, look at that scoundrel up that palm! Blow him out of there!" He
pointed his gun without thinking of using it. "Blow him out, I say."
Half a dozen riders heard and looked. They swung up their carbines
and fired as they galloped. Strawbridge could see the spatter of the
bullets against the big leaves; next moment the head and shoulders made
a limp lurch forward, and the figure of a man dropped out of the palm
and turned over and over in the air. With a primitive satisfaction the
drummer watched the fall. He had wiped out an enemy. He stared down the
_playa_. Far down where the quay narrowed with distance, a line of men
were marching through the sunshine. He could see the glitter of their
bayonets and their intense shadows moving in front of them. At sight of
these federal soldiers the carbines about Strawbridge began a staccato
snapping. The distant line of soldiers stopped, knelt, aimed, like a
little row of toys in the brilliant sunshine. Then came the faint crack
of their volley.
The effect appalled Strawbridge. A peon on the drummer's right reeled
from his saddle; ahead of him a horse reared and fell, flinging his
rider on the cobbles, under the hoofs of the horses. The drummer saw
the wretch thresh about as he was broken upon the stones.
For answer the insurgents deployed the width of the _playa_, between
the houses and the palms, and charged. Horses, mules, howling peons,
and chattering carbines roared down the quay. The Federals fired one
more volley, then suddenly broke and fled. They scurried in every
direction. Their little human speed was so puny that the horses
overhauled them like giants. A feeling of tremendous strength filled
Strawbridge. He was a Gulliver plunging down on Lilliputians. He
selected a man to kill. The Federal sprinted desperately, but his short
legs seemed barely to move in front of the English stallion.
The chase became a vertigo. A hard pulse pounded in Strawbridge's ears.
Never before had he known the terrific excitement of hunting a man down
and killing him. The drummer's adroitness and horsemanship sharpened to
the delight of murder. He cleared his carbine and aimed at the runner.
He meant to hit him in the cross of his canteen strap. He pulled the
trigger....
A terrific concussion almost bowled over the drummer and his horse. It
displaced the whole platoon. Strawbridge whirled, and saw the roofs of
the adobes lined with federal troops, firing down on the cavalry.
Men and horses fell beneath continuous volleys. The squadron was
falling back toward the river. The men acted as if they struggled in
the teeth of a furious wind-storm. Suddenly some of them wheeled off
toward the river. Rosales was behind his men, howling and spewing
Spanish oaths. He beat the fugitives with the back of his sword. In
the uproar the hatchet-faced lieutenant, leaning forward toward the
enemy, pointed at the roofs. He might have been trying to reach the
crashing rifles with the tip of his saber. He was howling for his
men to charge. A flame of sympathy went through Strawbridge for this
indomitable knave of an officer. He headed his stallion about in the
careening column. He shouted a mixture of English and Spanish:
"_Adelante!_ Bore into 'em! _Pronto!_ Wipe 'em out--the hellions!"
The powerful horse might have been a stanchion shoring up the column.
His mere lunge turned three or four fugitives toward the enemy. This
whirling movement became the focus of a renewed charge. Every man took
courage from Strawbridge, from the thin-faced reprobate who led them.
The column flung itself into the teeth of the fire from the roofs.
The stink and sting of powder-gas jabbed up Strawbridge's nose. The
Federals on the roof shone dimly behind a mist of smokeless powder.
As Strawbridge charged in, he could see the face of a man staring at
him, and the circle of a rifle muzzle under his right eye. The cavalry
plunged in against the mud walls. Horses smashed against them, reared,
fell, or squatted trembling at this blank obstruction. What for?
Strawbridge did not know. He was furiously angry. He meant to strike.
Rosales had directed his charge toward the lowest roof in the whole
_playa_ side. It was not more than eight feet high. The focusing of
his fire on this point had cut down the defense just here and left a
gap in the line of defenders. As Rosales dashed up to this building,
he caught the adobe eaves and succeeded in drawing himself up to the
roof. A Federal seemed to discharge a gun through his head, but the
daredevil pressed on, with his automatic going. Half a dozen, a dozen
other _llaneros_ followed. A score gained footing on the low roof.
They were amazing horsemen. The Federals were not deployed on the
roofs. They could fire only from the ends of their columns. The knot of
cavalry on the red tiles grew, expanded, pressed back the feeble ends
of the enemy. The fight had transferred itself from the streets to the
house-tops--the classic stage for South American battles.
In the midst of this extraordinary manœuver, Strawbridge found himself
trying to scramble up the corner of a building. He could not take off
from the saddle. From the ground he could just reach the eave. He clung
to the hot adobe and pulled with all his strength, kicking and pawing
at the corner with knees and feet. Now and then a bullet flicked adobe
dust into his face. With a desperate kick he did succeed in hanging a
toe over the cornice. Just as he was wriggling his heavy body up on the
roof, something about his hold broke. He dropped broadside from where
he sagged, falling about five feet and landing in the litter which
collects about Spanish-American huts.
The big drummer lay inert, and cursed with every blasphemy to which he
could lay his tongue. He cursed Federals, insurgents, house, sun, dust.
He invoked the Deity to consign each to its particular hell. He lay in
burning dust, swearing at a mud wall not six inches from his nose.
The tearing volleys of rifle shots were drawing a little away from
where Strawbridge lay. The quest of the peons for liberty was
withdrawing itself somewhat. Presently the American made an effort to
get out of his burning bed. He stirred, and found to his discomfiture
that one of his arms was numb. He wondered anxiously if he had broken
it.
He used his good arm, made shift to sit up, then got to his feet.
Then he was surprised to see that his numb hand was bloody. A closer
examination showed that the bones in his palm had been shattered by a
bullet. That was what flung him from the roof. He looked at his hand
in dismay, turning it over and back. It did not seem to belong to him.
He began swearing again, mentally. What a hell of an accident to happen
to him! For him, Thomas Strawbridge, to get shot! What a damnable piece
of luck! He continued damning his luck, with quivering earnestness.
He could not realize that it was his hand, attached to his wrist. He
kept looking at it. The hand did not pain him in the least. It had no
sensation at all.
There had been a certain order kept by the peon cavalry, of which
Strawbridge had not been aware. Now, as he looked about, he saw the
insurgents' horses trotting in a dark group far down the _playa_.
They were under the care of hostlers, which the hair-splitting plans
of Saturnino no doubt had arranged for, for just such an emergency as
this. Naturally, Strawbridge's English stallion had vanished with the
herd.
Near at hand lay men and horses, dead and wounded. One mule, shot
through the back, was dragging itself by its fore feet. Strawbridge
picked up his carbine with his good hand and ended its struggles.
For a few minutes the drummer stood looking at this dead mule, at a
dead peon some ten steps farther east, then at a sort of windrow of
mules and horses and peons where the cavalry had hesitated before
charging.
These were the men whom Strawbridge had seen, only an hour before,
embracing and weeping over their loves; now they lay in all sorts of
twisted and grotesque postures; already the green flies were buzzing
about the mouths their sweethearts had kissed. Such was the outcome of
their fight for liberty. This was the freedom they had found, these
brown exhalations of the llanos, who rose up out of the earth, fought,
struggled, plotted, murdered, and sank into the llanos again. And all
their pain and fury had ever done in four centuries was to exchange one
dictator for another....
A profound weariness came over Strawbridge. The crotches of his legs,
which the horse had skinned, began burning again. An unlocalized
throbbing set up in his wounded arm. A fly came buzzing about, and the
drummer waved it away. Then he examined his wound again, and as he
looked he grew sick at heart. He would be crippled for the rest of his
life. Never before had a mishap befallen his big, comfortable body, and
now his hand was gone and he could never have it again. This seemed to
Strawbridge the most tragic thing which had happened in the battle of
San Geronimo--that he, who was such a busy man, who needed his hand so
much, should have lost it.
With an American's dread of germs he wanted to tie up his wound, to
prevent infection. With this object in view, he looked anxiously about
over the shambles.
The wharf was deserted by the living. The small _drogistas_ which
usually are found along Latin-American streets were all shut like
blind eyes. Sounds of the fighting, a little softened, came from
the direction of the _casa fuerte_. A rather wild notion came to
Strawbridge to follow the soldiers and obtain his dressing from the
medical corps of the insurgents; then he recalled that they had no
medical corps. They had brought along with them a priest to save the
dead, but they had not even a first-aid pack for the wounded.
Beyond the row of palms down the center of the _playa_, the drummer
presently observed a goleta, one of those curious Orinocan schooners
with preternaturally tall masts, and a little square sail swung down
under her jib. She was lying close to the bank, and evidently was stuck
on a sand-bar, for her owner was on deck, trying, with a long spar, to
pry her off.
This sort of craft often carried passengers on the river, and the
American felt sure she would possess some of the simpler surgical
aids. So he picked up his carbine and set off at a painful pace to the
waterside.
When the drummer had passed the row of palms and appeared moving
definitely toward the schooner, the man on deck stopped poling. He
peered through the glare, at the American, and next moment dashed out
of sight below deck.
His action cheered Strawbridge. The drummer felt that the skipper
had understood the situation and had rushed below for his surgical
dressings, to have them ready by his arrival. This thoughtfulness put
a little better heart into the wounded man as he moved shakily along
through the glare and heat. He could not help thinking of the inherent
courtesy in all Venezuelans. It was perhaps not sincere every time,
thought the American, but it was as soothing as a poultice.
As Strawbridge moved gratefully toward the goleta, the skipper
reappeared on deck with a stick; no, it was an outrageously long gun.
He leveled it at the drummer and fired point-blank. The bullet whistled
past the American's ear, and plunked into a heap of balata balls behind
him.
Strawbridge stopped and stared, bewildered. The skipper was feverishly
reloading his extraordinary gun. It seemed to be some sort of
single-shot arrangement. The drummer was amazed, and suddenly outraged.
"Here!" he shouted. "What the hell do you mean?"
The master of the schooner lifted his weapon again, to correct his
faulty shot, when the salesman instinctively dived behind some bags of
tonka-beans. He peered over the tops, still scarcely able to believe
his senses, when the captain fired again and something nicked the
American's hat.
At this second discharge the drummer went furious. To be fired on
casually and without any provocation whatever! With his good arm, he
flung his carbine along the top of the bags leveled down, and fired at
the captain. At his first movement, however, the sailor had dropped
down and disappeared below the garboard of the schooner.
The American fired two vicious shots at the place where the captain
must have been prone. Then he glared at the vacant deck, with the
bitterest sense of injury he had ever known. To be fired upon when he
was seeking aid and comfort--to be shot at like a rat!
His feeling of injury became so intense he burst out cursing the
invisible sailor, loading him with every obscene and profane
qualification. With his carbine leveled over the bags, he swore
furiously for two or three minutes. Then he began to repeat his oaths,
and presently fizzled out through a mere sense of rhetoric. Then he
damned his enemy for a coward, and invited him to stand up like a man
and get killed.
Passed a slight interim, and a voice behind the gunwale, but
considerably removed from where the fellow had disappeared, called out,
"Señor!"
Through some strange reaction, this placating "Señor" added fuel to
Strawbridge's wrath. He broke out again, howling, swearing, and urging
the captain to get up and be shot.
But the captain conducted his end of the conversation from cover.
"Señor," he repeated without any resentment in his tone, "are you not a
_revolutionista_?"
"No!" yelled Strawbridge. "I'm a decent American citizen down in this
hell-fired country...." He continued this strain upward half a minute.
When he became silent again, the hidden one ejaculated mildly:
"_Caramba!_ How should I know you were an _Americano_, señor?"
"Well,--by God!--you ought to look who you're shooting at!"
"Up this Orinoco valley, señor, if you look too long before you shoot,
you may not get to shoot at all."
"Huh! I bet you knew I was an American all the time."
"No, really, señor! Why should I shoot at an _Americano_?"
Strawbridge could think of no reason why any one should want to shoot
at an American. During the silence which followed, the sailor asked in
a placating tone:
"May I stand up, _Señor Americano_? This deck is very warm indeed."
The drummer relinquished his notion of killing the man.
"All right, get up," he conceded. "We're not doing any good like this."
And Strawbridge walked out from behind the tonka-beans at the same time
the captain sat up and then stood.
The sailor was a brown man, dripping with sweat, and with smudges of
pitch on his clothes which he had got from the seams in the deck.
He had a good-humored face, rather scared just now, and he looked
curiously at Strawbridge as he mopped his face and neck with a red
handkerchief.
"Will you come aboard my ship, señor?" he inquired courteously, getting
his spar again and running it out to where Strawbridge could by wading
a little reach the end of it. The drummer walked aboard.
The moment the drummer stepped on deck, the captain began hastily:
"Now, señor, if you would be kind enough to lend me a little help ... I
am trying to float the _Concepcion Inmaculada_."
"What's the rush?" asked the salesman, looking at his wounded hand.
The fellow swung his weight against the spar.
"_Caramba!_ If the _revolutionistas_ catch me here, they will strip my
poor _Concepcion Inmaculada_ to her last sheet."
"Steal your stuff!" echoed Strawbridge. "What makes you think so!"
"Lightning of God!" cried the shipmaster. "They are ladrones, bandits,
cutpurses! Come, give a poor man a hand, señor!" He was shoving now
with all his strength.
"You're wrong about that!" defended the drummer, warmly. "I know those
fellows. Came up here with 'em." He doubled up his good fist and began
making strong, convincing selling gestures with it.
"You can take this from me, señor," he said: "The revolutionists are
just as high-toned a set of men as you'll find in Venezuela. I honestly
believe General Fombombo has higher ideals than any public man I ever
knew, and as for that Coronel Saturnino--say! you got to hand it to him
for courtesy and politeness! So don't get all fussed about your boat.
You're safe as a church, right here." Strawbridge paused impressively,
and then asked, "Say, can you do anything for this damned hand of mine!"
The captain was convinced. Perhaps of all the men in the world the
American salesman has a style of talk the most sincere in sound. The
captain visibly put by his doubts of the revolutionists, and then
looked at the hand.
"_Caramba!_ that's a bad punch!"
"Yeh, tough luck."
A faint suspicion crossed the brown man's mind.
"You were not fighting, señor? You are not a _revolutionista_ yourself?"
"Hell, no! I got this following the troops around. I wanted to see how
they worked."
"_Cá!_ Are you a military attaché, _Señor Americano_?"
The ship-owner was visibly impressed, but Strawbridge straightened.
"Say, do I look like a damn diplomatic lounge lizard sunning himself
in some South American post! By God, I'm a man! I'm an American
salesman down here investigating a point of business. I sell hardware,
myself. I make this territory once a year. What's your line!"
The captain of the _Concepcion Inmaculada_ opened his eyes at a man who
so scorned a governmental position. His respect mounted. In fact, the
captain was born into the South American cult of respect for office.
He had never before met the North American's thoroughgoing contempt
for politics and politicians, nor was he aware of the fact that it is
barely respectable to be anything less than a senator in the United
States--and often not that.
So now the sailor introduced himself with circumspection to so
important a personage. He was Noe Vargas, commander of the _Concepcion
Inmaculada_, sailing out of Coro. He had cruised up the Orinoco to buy
tonka-beans and balata, and would carry them to Curaçao to be reshipped
to Holland. In fact, a large part of the beans and balata which
Strawbridge saw lying on the wharf was consigned to the _Concepcion
Inmaculada_, if only Noe could succeed in lading his vessel.
All this information was delightful to Strawbridge. In fact, this
was the first conversation which he had really enjoyed since coming
to Venezuela. And while Captain Vargas was not particularly fond
of talking of sago, copra, cassava, guarapo, and such articles of
commerce, he was flattered that so great a man as Strawbridge should
deign to listen to him.
As they talked, Captain Vargas made shift to bind up Strawbridge's
hand. He had no surgical linen, but he thought the tail of one of his
shirts would do. Strawbridge objected, on the score of germs. The
captain assured him these were impossible, because only the day before
he had washed this shirt, which he proposed to use, in the Orinoco, and
it was a well-known fact that running water purified itself once every
thousand yards.
"And think how pure the Orinoco must be, señor," added the captain,
"for the Orinoco had flowed for thousands and thousands of miles!"
So Strawbridge went below, into a smelly cabin. The captain found the
shirt he meant, in a bag of dunnage, pulled it out, cut off the tail,
and bound up the drummer's hand.
The two men were still talking business when they returned to the
deck. Strawbridge had excited himself somewhat by explaining that if
the revolutionists took San Geronimo it would mean for him an order
of thousands of rifles and cases of ammunition. This meant a rich
commission. The skipper and the drummer stood on deck, listening to the
gun-shots which would decide the American's commission. The reports
came in gusts.
Strawbridge peered in the direction of the fighting. He tiptoed
and moved about the deck, but all he could see was the haze of
semi-smokeless powder hanging over the city in the direction of the
_casa fuerte_. Presently the captain ejaculated:
"_Caramba!_ To think that this fighting may put a fortune in your
pocket!"
The drummer nodded.
"It may do it. Damn it! I hope Saturnino wins!"
Both men stared cityward. The volley-firing had almost died out. In its
place came a desultory snapping which gave Strawbridge the impression
of some person shooting the last few rats in a corn-bin. Now a rat
would be found behind a plank--_bang!_ Then two would start from a
covert--_bang! bang!_ These were the sounds which came from the city.
Single reports at irregular intervals. There was something dreadful and
cold-blooded about it.
Suddenly Captain Vargas pointed.
"_Mire!_ Yonder they come out of the _calle_! Look!"
Sure enough, through the palms the drummer saw a line of soldiers march
out of a street into the _playa_. Captain Vargas turned and ran below
for a telescope. The drummer screwed up his eyes against the glare and
peered without breathing. He was trying to find out whether he was
thousands of dollars winner, or whether his side had lost. In the heat
the soldiers and the quay danced and shimmered. It was impossible to
tell whether they were Federals or rebels. However, the crowd fell into
a definite arrangement. A line of men were standing up against the low
adobe walls, while another line stood opposite to them in the _playa_.
A kind of crawling went over Strawbridge. His heart began to beat
heavily, and he stared at the scene with fascinated eyes. At that
moment Captain Vargas hurried up on deck with the telescope.
Strawbridge turned, almost jerked the instrument from the Venezuelan,
and fumbled at it with his good hand and the wrist of his wounded
arm. The captain helped him, and he peered through the glass. Views
of palms, of blank walls, of roofs and rolling clouds swung back and
forth, up and down; then abruptly appeared a line of men standing
against a wall. At the very first glimpse Strawbridge's whole ventral
cavity seemed to collapse. At the head of the unhappy column stood
Lieutenant Rosales. The drummer could make out even his sharp, dusty
features. A figure in a cassock stood in front of the lieutenant,
holding up a cross. A nervous spasm swung the lense out of line. When
he refocused it, Lieutenant Rosales had disappeared from the head of
the column, and an ordinary peon stood next. A solitary rifle report
reached the _Concepcion Inmaculada_.
Strawbridge stopped looking and with a shaking hand handed the glass to
the captain. His mouth was so dry he could scarcely speak.
"That ... that ... that was ... Rosales...."
"Your friend?"
Strawbridge nodded.
"Then the insurgents have lost!"
Strawbridge nodded again. Then he went to a coil of rope in the shade
of the mainsail and sat down. The slow reports came to him from the end
of the _playa_--_bang!_--_bang!_--_bang!_ Rosales ... Saturnino ...
Gumersindo ... the peons, the indomitable peons who had ridden out with
their lives in search of liberty. The banging would never, never cease.
The horror, the pathos of it shook the drummer. He leaned forward
on his knees and let his head go limply in his folded arms. He did
not care whether he lived or died. From the end of the _playa_ the
slow reports assaulted his ears. After a while they stopped. There
was a singing in his ears as if he had taken quinine. Presently
Captain Vargas said, "They are coming down here." Strawbridge paid
no attention. All of his friends on that brave adventure were gone.
Gumersindo, with his strange philosophy, was no more, nor the mocking
Saturnino, nor the kindly priest. Captain Vargas was saying, "Remember,
_mi amigo_, you are my first mate, if any one should ask. You have been
on the _Concepcion Inmaculada_ all the time. You and I did not fly as
the other cowardly vessels did, because we felt that Justice, God, and
the federal forces must win."
Strawbridge looked up at the captain and nodded mechanically. He could
feel that his face was putty-colored. The two men ceased talking and
watched the approach of the federal troops.
As Strawbridge stared at the marching men he scrutinized the officer
at the head of the column, a graceful figure of medium height, with
slender waist and broad shoulders. This man had just executed a whole
column of insurgents, but he bore his bloody deed with a light heart.
He walked jauntily, with his visor tipped up and a hand resting
lightly on the hilt of his sword.
The drummer tried to make out the features of this man upon whom his
own fortunes, even his own life, rested so heavily. He peered intently
through the downpour of sunshine. As he looked, a queer illusion took
place. The face of the strange officer seemed to melt and change into
the features of Coronel Saturnino. A kind of exaltation shone through
the dust on this handsome and familiar face. The drummer was shocked
at such a resemblance to his executed friend. Then, in the ranks, he
espied the black face of Gumersindo. Strawbridge thought he was going
mad. At that moment the officer at the head of the column whipped out
his sword and saluted the drummer on deck.
"_Bravo_, Señor Strawbridge!" he shouted joyfully. "I have heard how
you stopped a panic and headed a cavalry charge against the ambuscade
on the roofs. _Mire, mis bravos!_ There stands the man who won the
battle of San Geronimo!"
Under his violent revulsion, the drummer could scarcely breathe. He
gaped and stared.
"What! What! Are those our troops! My God! I thought you were all
dead--executed. I thought I saw poor Rosales facing a firing-squad!"
Saturnino lost his ebullience.
"You mean at the end of the _playa_?"
"Yes."
"That was Rosales. When his forces gained the _casa fuerte_ by a most
gallant charge from the flank, he then tried to hold the fort against
my own troops." Saturnino's voice took a metallic tang: "I had to win
the stronghold by fighting half my own troops. That young whelp's
insurrection almost frustrated my plans."
Strawbridge was dumbfounded.
"You mean ... he deserted you in battle?... turned on you in the midst
of battle?"
Saturnino waved a hand.
"For a long time there has been a plot brewing in Canalejos, against
General Fombombo. It came to a head in Rosales...." He shrugged.
"_Cá!_ You can scarcely blame a _joven_ of spirit from playing the
game. If he had won...." Saturnino looked at the town and the wide
river. "_Caramba!_ he would have won a nucleus for a state of his own,
thrust in between federal and insurgent territory. _Cá!_ It was quite a
stroke. I think I will give the lad a military funeral. Such souls as
his have made the Latin race great." Just then the colonel's eyes fell
on the drummer's bandaged hand.
"_Ola, mi amigo!_ I see you are wounded!"