At the Palace, the Americans were separated. Saxon was ushered into a
small room, barely furnished. Its one window was barred, and the one
door that penetrated its thick wall was locked from the outside. It
seemed incredible that under such stimulus his memory should remain
torpid. This must be an absolute echo from the past--yet, he could not
remember. But Rodman remembered--and evidently the government
remembered.
About the same hour, Mr. Partridge called at the "Frances y Ingles,"
where he learned that Senor Saxon had gone out. He called again late
in the evening. Saxon had not returned.
The following morning, the Hon. Charles Pendleton, Envoy Extraordinary
and Minister Plenipotentiary of the United States of America, read
Saxon's letters of introduction. The letters sufficiently established
the standing of the artist to assure him his minister's interest.
Partridge was dispatched to the hotel to bring the traveler to the
legation. Partridge came back within the hour, greatly perturbed.
Having found that Saxon had not returned during the night, and knowing
the customs of the country, he had spent a half-hour in investigating
by channels known to himself. He learned, at the end of much
questioning and cross-questioning, that the senor, together with
another gentleman evidently also an _Americano del Nordo_, had passed
the street-door late in the evening, with military escort.
Mr. Partridge hastened to his legation at a rate of speed subversive
of all Puerto Frio traditions. In Puerto Frio, haste is held to be an
affront to dignity, and dignity is esteemed.
The Hon. Charles Pendleton listened to his subordinate's report with
rising choler.
His diplomacy was of the aggressive type, and his first duty was that
of making the protecting pinions of the spread eagle stretch wide
enough to reach every one of those entitled to its guardianship.
Saxon and Rodman had the night before entered the frowning walls of
the Palace through a narrow door at the side. The American minister
now passed hastily between files of presented arms. Inside, he learned
that his excellency, _el Presidente_, had not yet finished his
breakfast, but earnestly desired his excellency, _el ministro_, to
share with him an alligator pear and cup of coffee.
In the suave presence of the dictator, the minister's choler did not
cease. Rather, it smoldered while he listened perfunctorily to
flattering banalities. He had struck through intermediary stages; had
passed over the heads of departments and holders of portfolios, to
issue his ultimatum to the chief executive. Yet, in approaching his
subject, he matched the other's suavity with a pleasantness that the
dictator distrusted. The dark face of the autocrat became grave until,
when Mr. Pendleton reached the issue, it was deeply sympathetic,
surprised and attentive.
"I am informed that some one--I can not yet say who--wearing your
excellency's uniform, seized an American citizen of prominence on the
streets of Puerto Frio last evening."
The President was shocked and incredulous.
"Impossible!" he exclaimed with deep distress; then, again:
"Impossible!"
From the diplomat's eloquent sketching of the situation, it might have
been gathered that the United States war department stood anxiously
watching for such affronts, and that the United States war department
would be very petulant when notification of the incident reached it.
Mr. Pendleton further assured his excellency, _el Presidente_, that it
would be his immediate care to see that such notification had the
right of way over the Panama cable.
"I have information," began the dictator slowly, "that two men
suspected of connection with an insurgent _junta_ have been arrested.
As to their nationality, I have received no details. Certainly, no
American citizen has been seized with my consent. The affair appears
grave, and shall be investigated. Your excellency realizes the
necessity of vigilance. The revolutionist forfeits his nationality."
He spread his hands in a vague gesture.
"Mr. Robert Saxon," retorted the minister, "should hardly be a
suspect. The fact that he was not a guest at my legation, and for the
time a member of my family, was due only to the accident of my absence
from the city on his arrival yesterday."
With sudden bustle, the machinery of the Palace was set in motion. Of
a surety, some one had blundered, and "some one" should be condignly
punished!
It was a very irate gentleman, flushed from unwonted exertion in the
tropics, who was ushered at last into Saxon's room. It was a very much
puzzled and interested gentleman who stood contemplatively studying
the direct eyes of the prisoner a half-hour later.
Saxon had told Mr. Pendleton the entire narrative of his quest of
himself, and, as he told it, the older man listened without a question
or interruption, standing with his eyes fixed on the teller, twisting
an unlighted cigar in his fingers.
"Mr. Saxon, I am here to safeguard the interests of Americans. Our
government does not, however, undertake to chaperon filibustering
expeditions. It becomes necessary to question you."
There followed a brief catechism in which the replies seemed to
satisfy the questioner. When he came to the incident of his meeting
with Rodman, Saxon paused.
"As to Rodman," he said, "who was arrested with me, I have no
knowledge that would be evidence. I know nothing except from the
hearsay of his recital."
Mr. Pendleton raised his hand.
"I am only questioning you as to yourself. This other man, Rodman,
will have to prove his innocence. I'm afraid I can't help him.
According to their own admissions, they know nothing against you
beyond the fact that you were seen with him last night."
Saxon came to his feet, bewildered.
"But the previous matter--the embezzlement?" he demanded. "Of course,
I had nothing to do with this affair. It was that other for which I
was arrested."
The envoy laughed.
"You punched cows six years ago. You cartooned five years ago, and you
have painted landscapes ever since. I presume, if it became necessary,
you could prove an alibi for almost seven years?"
Saxon nodded. He fancied he saw the drift of the argument. It was to
culminate in the same counsel that Steele had given. He would be
advised to allow the time to reach the period when his other self
should be legally dead.
Mr. Pendleton paced the floor for a space, then came back and halted
before the cot, on the edge of which the prisoner sat.
"I have been at this post only two years, but I am, of course,
familiar with the facts of that case." He paused, then added with
irrelevance: "It may be that you bear a somewhat striking resemblance
to this particularly disreputable conspirator. Of course, that's
possible, but--"
"But highly improbable," admitted Saxon.
"Oh, you are not that man! That can be mathematically demonstrated,"
asserted Mr. Pendleton suddenly. "I was only reflecting on the
fallibility of circumstantial evidence. I am a lawyer, and once, as
district attorney, I convicted a man on such evidence. He's in the
penitentiary now, and it set me wondering if--"
But Saxon stood dumfounded, vainly trying to speak. His face was
white, and he had seized the envoy by the arm with a grip too
emphatic for diplomatic etiquette.
"Do you know what you are saying?" he shouted. "I am not that man! How
do you know that?"
"I know it," responded Mr. Pendleton calmly, "because the incident of
the firing-squad occurred five years ago--and the embezzlement only
four years back."
Saxon remained staring in wide-eyed amazement. He felt his knees grow
suddenly weak, and the blood cascaded through the arteries of his
temples. Then, he turned, and, dropping again to the edge of the cot,
covered his face with his hands.
"You see," explained Mr. Pendleton, "there is only one ground upon
which any charge against you can be reinstated--an impeachment of your
evidence as to how you have put in the past five years. And," he
smilingly summarized, "since the case comes before this court solely
on your self-accusation, since you have journeyed some thousands of
miles merely to prosecute yourself, I regard your evidence on that
point as conclusive."
Later, the envoy, with his arm through that of the liberated
prisoner, walked out past deferential sentries into the Plaza.
"And, now, the blockade being run," he amiably inquired, "what are
your plans?"
"Plans!" exclaimed Saxon scornfully; "plans, sir, is plural. I have
only one: to catch the next boat that's headed north. Why," he
explained, "there is soon going to be an autumn in the Kentucky hills
with all the woods a blaze of color."
The minister's eyes took on a touch of nostalgia.
"I guess there's nothing much the matter with the autumn in Indiana,
either," he affirmed.
They walked on together at a slow gait, for the morning sun was
already beginning to beat down as if it were focused through a
burning-glass.
"And say," suggested Mr. Pendleton at last, "if you ever get to a
certain town in Indiana called Vevay, which is on some of the more
complete maps, walk around for me and look at the Davis building. You
won't see much--only a hideous two-story brick, with a metal roof and
dusty windows, but my shingle used to hang out there--and it's in
God's country!"
Before they had reached the legation, Saxon remembered that his plans
involved another detail, and with some secrecy he sought the cable
office, and wrote a message to Duska. Its composition consumed a
half-hour, yet he felt it was not quite the masterpiece the occasion
demanded. It read:
"Arrived yesterday. Slept in jail. Out to-day. Am not he."
The operator, counting off the length with his pencil, glanced up
thoughtfully.
"It costs a dollar a word, sir," he vouchsafed.
But Saxon nodded affluently, for he knew that the _City of Rio_ sailed
north that afternoon, and he did not know that her sister ship, the
_Amazon_, with Duska on board, was at this moment nosing its way south
through the tepid water--only twenty-four hours away.
As the _City of Rio_ wound up her rusty anchor chains that afternoon,
Saxon was jubilantly smoking his pipe by the rail.
In the launch just putting off from the steamer's side stood the Hon.
Mr. Pendleton, waving his hat, and Jimmy Partridge wildly shouting,
"Give my regards to Broadway!" The minister's flag, which had floated
over the steamer while the great personage was on board, was just
dipping, and Saxon's hand was still cramped under the homesick
pressure of the farewell grips.
Suddenly, the traveler had a feeling of a presence at his elbow, and,
turning, was profoundly astonished to behold again the complacent
visage of Mr. Rodman.
"You see, I still appear to be among those present," announced the
filibuster, with some breeziness of manner. "It's true that I stand
before you, 'my sweet young face still haggard with the anguish it has
worn,' but I'm here, which is, after all, the salient feature of the
situation. Say, what did you do to them?"
"I?" questioned Saxon. "I did nothing. The minister came and took me
out of their Bastile."
"Well, say, he must have thrown an awful scare into them." Mr. Rodman
thoughtfully stroked his chin with a thin forefinger. "He must have
intimidated them unmercifully and brutally. They stampeded into my
wing of the Palace, and set me free as though they were afraid I had
the yellow-fever. 'Wide they flung the massive portals'--all that sort
of thing. Now, what puzzles me is, why did they do it? They had the
goods on me--almost. However, I'm entirely pleased." Rodman laughed as
he lighted a cigar, and waved his hand with mock sentiment toward the
shore. "And I had put the rifles through, too," he declared,
jubilantly. "I'd turned them over to the _insurrecto_ gentleman in
good order. Did they clamor for your blood about the $200,000?"
"Rodman," said Saxon slowly, "I hardly expect you to believe it, but
that was a case of mistaken identity. I'm not the man you think. I was
never in Puerto Frio before."
Rodman let the cigar drop from his astonished lips, and caught wildly
after it as it fell overboard.
"What?" he demanded, at last. "How's that?"
"It was a man who looked like me," elucidated Saxon.
"You are damned right--he looked like you!" Rodman halted, amazed into
silence. At last, he said: "Well, you have got the clear nerve! What's
the idea, anyhow. Don't you trust me?"
The artist laughed.
"I hardly thought you would credit it," he said. "After all, that
doesn't make much difference. The point is, my dear boy, _I_ know it."
But Rodman's debonair smile soon returned. He held up his hand with a
gesture of acceptance.
"What difference does it make? A gentleman likes to change his
linen--why not his personality? I dare say it's a very decent
impulse."
For a moment, Saxon looked up with an instinctive resentment for the
politely phrased skepticism of the other. Then, his displeasure
changed to a smile. He had, for a moment, felt the same doubt when Mr.
Pendleton brought his verdict. Rodman had none of the facts, and a
glance at the satirical features showed that it would be impossible
for this unimaginative adventurer to construe premises to a seemingly
impossible conclusion. He was the materialist, and dealt in palpable
appearances. After all, what did it matter? He had made his effort,
and would, as he had promised Duska, vex his Sphinx with no more
questioning. He would go on as Robert Saxon, feeling that he had done
his best with conscientious thoroughness. It was, after all, only
cutting the Gordian knot in his life. After a moment, he looked up.
"Which way do you go?" he inquired.
The other man shrugged his shoulders.
"I go back to Puerto Frio--after the blow-off."
"After the blow-off?" Saxon repeated, in interrogation.
"Sure!" Rodman stretched his thin hand shoreward, and dropped his
voice. "Take a good look at yon fair city," he laughed, "for, before
you happen back here again, it may have fallen under fire and sword."
The soldier of fortune spoke with some of the pride that comes to the
man who feels he is playing a large game, whether it be a game of
construction or destruction, or whether, as is oftener the case, it be
both destruction and construction.
The painter obediently looked back at the adobe walls and cross-tipped
towers.
"Puerto Frio has been very good to me," he said, in an enigmatical
voice.
But Rodman was thinking too much of his own plans to notice the
comment.
"Do you see the mountain at the back of the city?" he suddenly
demanded. "That's San Francisco. Do you see anything queer about it?"
The artist looked at the peak rearing its summit against the hot blue
overhead, and saw only a sleeping tropical background for the indolent
tropical panorama stretching at its base.
"Well--" Rodman dropped his voice yet lower--"if you had a pair of
field glasses and studied the heights, you could see a few black
specks that are just now disused guns. By day after to-morrow, or, at
the latest, one day more, each of those specks will be a crater, and
the town will be under a shower of solid shot. There's some class to
work that can turn as mild a mannered hill as that into a
volcano--no?"
Saxon stood gazing with fascination.
"Meanwhile," he heard the other comment, "shipboard is good enough for
yours truly--because, as you know, shipboard is neutral ground for
political offenders--and the next gentleman who occupies the Palace
will be a friend who owes me something."