Puerto Frio sits back of its harbor, a medley of corrugated iron
roofs, adobe walls and square-towered churches. Along the water front
is a fringe of ragged palms. At one end of the semicircle that breaks
the straight coast line, a few steamers come to anchorage; at the
other rise jugged groups of water-eaten rocks, where the surf runs
with a cannonading of breakers, and tosses back a perpetual lather of
infuriated spray. From the mole, Saxon had his first near view of the
city. He drew a long inhalation of the hot air, and looked anxiously
about him.
He had been asking himself during the length of his journey whether a
reminder would be borne in on his senses, and awaken them to a throb
of familiarity. He had climbed the slippery landing stairs with the
oppressing consciousness that he might step at their top into a new
world--or an old and forgotten world. Now, he drew to one side, and
swept his eyes questioningly about.
Before him stretched a broad open space, through which the dust
swirled hot and indolent. Beyond lay the Plaza of Santo Domingo, and
on the twin towers of its church two crosses leaned dismally askew. A
few barefooted natives slouched across the sun-refracting square,
their shadows blue against the yellow heat. Saxon's gaze swung
steadily about the radius of sight, but his brain, like a paralyzed
nerve, touched with the testing-electrode, gave no reflex--no
response.
There was a leap at his heart which became hope as his cab jolted on
to the Hotel Frances y Ingles over streets that awoke no convicting
memories. He set out almost cheerfully for the American Legation to
present the letters of introduction he had brought from New York and
to tell his story. Thus supplied with credentials and facts, the
official might be prepared to assist him.
His second step--the test upon which he mainly depended--involved a
search for a yellow cathedral wall, surrounded with red flowers and
facing an open area. There, Saxon wanted to stand, for a moment,
against the masonry, with the sounds of the street in his ears and the
rank fragrance of the vine in his nostrils. There he would ask his
memory, under the influence of these reminders, the question the
water-front had failed to answer.
That wandering, however, should be reserved for the less conspicuous
time of night. He would spend the greater part of the day, since his
status was so dubious, in the protection of his room at the hotel.
If night did not answer the question, he would go again at sunrise,
and await the early glare on the wall, since that would exactly
duplicate former conditions. The night influences would be softer,
less cruel--and less exact, but he would go first by darkness and
reconnoiter the ground--unless his riddle were solved before.
The American Legation, he was informed, stood as did his hostelry, on
the main Plaza, only a few doors distant and directly opposite the
palace of the President.
He was met by Mr. Partridge, the secretary of legation. The minister
was spending several days at Miravista, but was expected back that
evening, or to-morrow morning at the latest. In the meantime, if the
secretary could be of service to a countryman, he would be glad. The
secretary was a likable young fellow with frank American eyes. He
fancied Saxon's face, and was accordingly cordial.
"There is quite a decent club here for Anglo-Saxon exiles," announced
Mr. Partridge. "Possibly, you'd like to look in? I'm occupied for the
day, but I'll drop around for you this evening, and make you out a
card."
Saxon left his letters with the secretary to be given to the chief on
arrival, and returned to the "Frances y Ingles."
He did not again emerge from his room until evening, and, as he left
the _patio_ of the hotel for his journey to the old cathedral, the
moon was shining brightly between the shadows of the adobe walls and
the balconies that hung above the pavements. As he went out through
the street-door, Mr. Howard Stanley Rodman glanced furtively up from a
corner table, and tossed away a half-smoked cigarette.
The old cathedral takes up a square. In the niches of its outer wall
stand the stone effigies of many saints. Before its triple,
iron-studded doors stretches a tiled terrace. At its right runs a
side-street, and, attracted by a patch of clambering vine on the
time-stained walls, where the moon fell full upon them, Saxon turned
into the byway. At the far end, the facade rose blankly, fronting a
bare drill-ground, and there he halted. The painter had not counted on
the moon. Now, as he took his place against the wall, it bathed him in
an almost effulgent whiteness. The shadows of the abutments were inky
in contrast, and the disused and ancient cannon, planted at the curb
for a corner post, stood out boldly in relief. But the street was
silent and, except for himself, absolutely deserted.
For a time, he stood looking outward. From somewhere at his back, in
the vaultlike recesses of the building, drifted the heavy pungency of
incense burning at a shrine.
His ears were alert for the sounds that might, in their drifting
inconsequence, mean everything. Then, as no reminder came, he closed
his eyes, and wracked his imagination in concentrated thought as a
monitor to memory. He groped after some detail of the other time, if
the other time had been an actual fragment of his life. He strove to
recall the features of the officer who commanded the death squad, some
face that had stood there before him on that morning; the style of
uniforms they wore. He kept his eyes closed, not only for seconds, but
for minutes, and, when in answer to his focused self-hypnotism and
prodding suggestion no answer came, there came in its stead a torrent
of joyous relief.
Then, he heard something like a subdued ejaculation, and opened his
eyes upon a startling spectacle.
Leaning out from the shadow of an abutment stood a thin man, whose
face in the moon showed a strange mingling of savagery and terror. It
was a face Saxon did not remember to have seen before. The eyes
glittered, and the teeth showed as the thin lips were drawn back over
them in a snarling sort of smile. But the most startling phase of the
tableau, to the man who opened his eyes upon it without warning, was
the circumstance of the unknown's pressing an automatic pistol
against his breast. Saxon's first impression was that he had fallen
prey to a robber, but he knew instinctively that this expression was
not that of a man bent on mere thievery. It had more depth and evil
satisfaction. It was the look of a man who turns a trick in an
important game.
As the painter gazed at the face and figure bending forward from the
abutment's sooty shadow like some chimera or gargoyle fashioned in the
wall, his first sentiment was less one of immediate peril than of
argument with himself. Surely, so startling a denouement should serve
to revive his memory, if he had faced other muzzles there!
When the man with the pistol spoke, it was in words that were
illuminating. The voice was tremulous with emotion, probably nervous
terror, yet the tone was intended to convey irony, and was partly
successful.
"I presume," it said icily, "you wished to enjoy the sensation of
standing at that point--this time with the certainty of walking away
alive. It must be a pleasant reminiscence, but one never can tell."
The thin man paused, and then began afresh, his voice charged with a
bravado that somehow seemed to lack genuineness.
"Last time, you expected to be carried away dead--and went away
living. This time, you expected to walk away in safety, and, instead,
you've got to die. Your execution was only delayed." He gave a short,
nervous laugh, then his voice came near breaking as he went on almost
wildly: "I've got to kill you, Carter. God knows I don't want to do
it, but I must have security! This knowledge that you are watching me
to drop on me like a hawk on a rat, will drive me mad. They've told me
up and down both these God-forsaken coasts, from Ancon to Buenos
Ayres, from La Boca to Concepcion, that you would get me, and now it's
sheer self-defense with me. I know you never forgave a wrong--and God
knows that I never did you the wrong you are trying to revenge. God
knows I am innocent."
Rodman halted breathless, and stood with his flat chest rising and
falling almost hysterically. He was in the state when men are most
irresponsible and dangerous.
Meanwhile, a pistol held in an unsteady hand, its trigger under an
uncertain finger, emphasized a situation that called for electrical
thinking. To assert a mistake in identity would be ludicrous. Saxon
was not in a position to claim that. The other man seemed to have
knowledge that he himself lacked. Moreover, that knowledge was the
information which Saxon, as self-prosecutor, must have. The only
course was to meet the other's bravado with a counter show of bravado,
and keep him talking. Perhaps, some one would pass in the empty
street.
"Well," demanded Rodman between gasping breaths, "why in hell don't
you say something?"
Saxon began to feel the mastery of the stronger man over the weaker,
despite the fact that the weaker supplemented his inferiority with a
weapon.
"It appears to me," came the answer, and it was the first time Rodman
had heard the voice, now almost velvety, "it appears to me that there
isn't very much for me to say. You seem to be in the best position to
do the talking."
"Yes, damn you!" accused the other, excitedly. "You are always the
same--always making the big pyrotechnic display! You have grandstanded
and posed as the debonair adventurer, until it's come to be second
nature. That won't help now!" The thin man's braggadocio changed
suddenly to something like a whine.
"You know I'm frightened, and you're throwing a bluff. You're a fool
not to realize that it's because I'm so frightened that I am capable
of killing you. I've craned my neck around every corner, and jumped at
every shadow since that day--always watching for you. Now, I'm going
to end it. I see your plan as if it were printed on a glass pane.
You've discovered my doings, and, if you left here alive, you'd inform
the government."
Here, at least, Saxon could speak, and speak truthfully.
"I don't know anything, or care anything, about your plans," he
retorted, curtly.
"That's a damned lie!" almost shrieked the other man. "It's just your
style. It's just your infernal chicanery. I wrote you that letter in
good faith, and you tracked me. You found out where I was and what I
was doing. How you learned it, God knows, but I suppose it's still
easy for you to get into the confidence of the _juntas_. The moment I
saw you on the boat, the whole thing flashed on me. It was your fine
Italian brand of work to come down on the very steamer that carried my
guns--to come ashore just at the psychological moment, and turn me
over to the authorities on the exact verge of my success! Your brand
of humor saw irony in that--in giving me the same sort of death you
escaped. But it's too late. Vegas has the guns in spite of you!
There'll be a new president in the palace within three days." The
man's voice became almost triumphant. He was breathing more normally
once again, as his courage gained its second wind.
Saxon was fencing for time. Incidentally, he was learning profusely
about the revolution of to-morrow, but nothing of the revolution of
yesterday.
"I neither know, nor want to know, anything about your dirty work," he
said, shortly. "Moreover, if you think I'm bent on vengeance, you are
a damned fool to tell me."
Rodman laughed satirically.
"Oh, I'm not so easy as you give me credit for being. You are trying
to 'kiss your way out,' as the thieves put it. You're trying to talk
me out of killing you, but do you know why I'm willing to tell you all
this?" He halted, then went on tempestuously. "I'll tell you why. In
the first place, you know it already, and, in the second place, you'll
never repeat any information after to-night. It's idiotic perhaps, but
my reason for not killing you right at the start is that I've got a
fancy for telling you the true facts, whether you choose to believe
them or not. It will ease my conscience afterward."
Saxon stood waiting for the next move, bracing himself for an
opportunity that might present itself, the pistol muzzle still pointed
at his chest.
"I'm not timid," went on the other. "You know me. Howard Rodman,
speakin' in general, takes his chances. But I am afraid of you, more
afraid than I am of the devil in hell. I know I can't bluff you. I
saw you stand against this wall with the soldiers out there in front,
and, since you can't be frightened off, you must be killed." The man's
voice gathered vehemence as he talked, and his face showed growing
agitation. "And the horrible part is that it's all a mistake, that I'd
rather be friends with you, if you'd let me. I never was informant
against you."
He paused, exhausted by his panic and his flow of words. Saxon, with a
strong effort, collected his staggered senses.
"Why do you think I come for vengeance?" he asked.
"Why do I think it?" The thin man laughed bitterly. "Why, indeed? What
except necessity or implacable vengeance could drive a man to this
God-forsaken strip of coast? And you--you with money enough to live
richly in God's country, you whose very face in these boundaries
invites imprisonment or death! What else could bring you? But I knew
you'd come--and, so help me God, I'm innocent."
A sudden idea struck Saxon. This might be the cue to draw on the
frightened talker without self-revelation.
"What do you want me to believe were the real facts?" he demanded,
with an assumption of the cold incredulity that seemed expected of
him.
The other spoke eagerly.
"That morning when General Ojedas' forces entered Puerto Frio, and the
government seized me, you were free. Then, I was released, and you
arrested. You drew your conclusions. Oh, they were natural enough.
But, before heaven, they were wrong!"
Saxon felt that, until he had learned the full story, he must remain
the actor. Accordingly, he allowed himself a skeptical laugh. Rodman,
stung by the implied disbelief, took up his argument again:
"You think I'm lying. It sounds too fishy! Of course, it was my
enterprise. It was a revolution of my making. You were called in as
the small lawyer calls in the great one. I concede all that. For me to
have sacrificed you would have been infamous, but I didn't do it. I
had been little seen in Puerto Frio. I was not well known. I had
arranged it all from the outside while you had been in the city. You
were less responsible, but more suspected. You remember how carefully
we planned--how we kept apart. You know that even you and I met only
twice, and that I never even saw your man, Williams."
Through the bitterness of conviction, a part of Saxon's brain seemed
to be looking on impersonally and marveling, almost with amusement, at
the remarkable position in which he found himself. Here stood a man
before him with a pistol pressed close to his chest, threatening
execution, denouncing, cursing, yet all the while giving evidence of
terror, almost pleading with his victim to believe his story! It was
the armed man who was frightened, who dreaded the act he declared he
was about to commit. And, as Saxon stood listening, it dawned upon
him, in the despair of the moment, that it was a matter of small
concern to himself whether or not the other fired. The story he had
heard had already done the injury. The bullet would be less cruel....
Rodman went on:
"I bent every effort to saving you, but Williams had confessed. He
was frightened. It was his first experience. He didn't know of my
connection with the thing. So help me God, that is the true version."
The story sickened Saxon, coming to him as it did in a form he could
no longer disbelieve. He raised his hands despairingly. At last, he
heard the other's voice again.
"When the scrap ended, and you were in power, I had gone. I was afraid
to come back. I knew what you would think, and then, after you left
the country, I couldn't find where you had gone."
"You may believe me or not," the painter said apathetically, "but I
have forgotten all that. I have no resentment, no wish for vengeance.
I had not even suspected you. I give you my word on that."
"Of course," retorted Rodman excitedly, "you'd say that. You're
looking down a gun-barrel. You're talking for your life. Of course,
you'd lie."
Then, the revolutionist did a foolish and unguarded thing. He came a
step nearer, and pressed the muzzle closer against Saxon's chest, his
own eyes glaring into those of his captive. The movement threw Saxon's
hands out of his diminished field of sight. In an instant, the painter
had caught the wrist of the slighter man in a grip that paralyzed the
hand, and forced it aside. The pistol fell from the nerveless fingers,
and dropped clattering to the flagstones. As it struck, Saxon swept it
backward with his foot.
Rodman leaped frantically backward, and stood for a moment rearranging
his crumpled cuff with the dazed manner of a man who hopes for no
quarter. His lower jaw dropped, and he remained trembling, almost
idiotic of mien. Then, as Saxon picked up the weapon and stood
fingering its trigger, the filibuster drew himself up really with
dignity. He stretched out both empty hands, and shrugged his
shoulders.
The fear of an enemy silently stalking him had filled his days with
terror. Now that he regarded death as certain, his cowardice dropped
away like a discarded cloak.
"I don't ask much," he said simply; "only, for God's sake kill me
here! Don't surrender me to the government! At least, let the other
fellows know that I was dead before their plans were betrayed."
"I told you," said Saxon in a dull voice, "that I had no designs on
you. I meant it! I told you I had forgotten. I meant it!"
As he spoke, Saxon's head dropped forward on his chest, and he stood
breathing heavily. The moonlight, falling full on his face, showed
such heart-broken misery as might have belonged to the visage of some
unresting ghost in an Inferno. His eyes were the eyes of utter
despair, and the hand that held the pistol hung limp at his side, the
weapon lying loose in its palm. Rodman stood wide-eyed before him. Had
he already been killed and returned to life, he could hardly have been
more astonished, and, when Saxon at last raised his face and spoke
again, the astonishment was greater than ever.
"Take your gun," said the painter, raising his hand slowly, and
presenting the weapon stock first. "If you want to kill me--go ahead."
Rodman, for an instant, suspected some subterfuge; then, looking into
the eyes before him, he realized that they were too surcharged with
sadness to harbor either vengeance or treachery. He could not fathom
the meaning, but he realized that from this man he had nothing to
fear. He slowly reached out his hand, and, when he had taken the
pistol, he put it away in his pocket.
Saxon laughed bitterly.
"So, that's the answer!" he muttered.
Without a word, the painter turned, and walked toward the front of the
cathedral; without a word, Rodman fell in by his side, and walked with
him. When they had gone a square, Saxon was again himself except for a
stonily set face. Rodman was wondering how to apologize. Carter had
never been a liar. If Carter said he had no thought of vengeance, it
was true, and Rodman had insulted him with the surmise.
Finally, the thin man inquired in a different and much softer voice:
"What are you doing in Puerto Frio?"
"It has nothing to do with revenge or punishment," replied Saxon, "and
I don't want to hear intrigues."
A quarter of an hour later, they reached the main plaza, Rodman still
mystified and Saxon walking on aimlessly at his side. He had no
definite destination. Nothing mattered. After a long silence, Rodman
demanded:
"Aren't you taking a chance--risking it in Puerto Frio?"
"I don't know."
There was another pause, broken at last by Rodman:
"Take this from me. Get at once in touch with the American legation,
and keep in touch! Stand on your good behavior. You may get away with
it." He interrupted himself abruptly with the question: "Have you been
keeping posted on South American affairs of late?"
"I don't know who is President," replied Saxon.
"Well, I'll tip you off. The only men who held any direct proof
about--about the $200,000 in gold that left about the same time you
did"--Saxon winced--"went into oblivion with the last revolution. Time
is a great restorer, and so many similar affairs have intervened that
you are probably forgotten. But, if I were you, I would get through
my affairs early and--beat it. It's a wise boy that is not where he
is, when he's wanted by some one he doesn't want."
Saxon made no reply.
"Say," commented the irrepressible revolutionist, as they strolled
into the arcade at the side of the main plaza, "you've changed a bit
in appearance. You're a bit heavier, aren't you?"
Saxon did not seem to hear.
The plaza was gay with the life of the miniature capital. Officers
strolled about in their brightest uniforms, blowing cigarette smoke
and ogling the senoritas, who looked shyly back from under their
mantillas.
From the band-stand blared the national air. Natives and foreigners
sauntered idly, taking their pleasure with languid ease. But Rodman
kept to the less conspicuous sides and the shadows of the arcade, and
Saxon walked with him, unseeing and deeply miserable.
Between the electric glare of the plaza and the first arc-light of the
_Calle Bolivar_ is a corner comparatively dark. Here, the men met two
army officers in conversation. Near them waited a handful of
soldiers. As the Americans came abreast, an officer fell in on either
side of them.
"Pardon, senors," said one, speaking in Spanish with extreme
politeness, "but it is necessary that we ask you to accompany us to
the Palace."
The soldiers had fallen in behind, following. Now, they separated, and
some of them came to the front, so that the two men found themselves
walking in a hollow square. Rodman halted.
"What does this signify?" he demanded in a voice of truculent
indignation. "We are citizens of the United States!"
"I exceedingly deplore the inconvenience," declared the officer. "At
the Palace, I have no doubt, it will be explained."
"I demand that we be taken first to the United States Legation,"
insisted Rodman.
The officer regretfully shook his head. "Doubtless, senors," he
assured them, "your legation will be immediately communicated with. I
have no authority to deviate from my orders."