An hour later Langham rose with a protesting sigh and shook the hood
violently.
"I say!" he called. "Are you asleep up there. We'll never get home at
this rate. Doesn't Hope want to come back here and go to sleep?"
The carriage stopped, and the boys tumbled out and walked around in
front of it. Hope sat smiling on the box-seat. She was apparently far
from sleepy, and she was quite contented where she was, she told him.
"Do you know we haven't had anything to eat since yesterday at
breakfast?" asked Langham. "MacWilliams and I are fainting. We move
that we stop at the next shack we come to, and waken the people up and
make them give us some supper."
Hope looked aside at Clay and laughed softly. "Supper?" she said.
"They want supper!"
Their suffering did not seem to impress Clay deeply. He sat snapping
his whip at the palm-trees above him, and smiled happily in an
inconsequent and irritating manner at nothing.
"See here! Do you know that we are lost?" demanded Langham,
indignantly, "and starving? Have you any idea at all where you are?"
"I have not," said Clay, cheerfully. "All I know is that a long time
ago there was a revolution and a woman with jewels, who escaped in an
open boat, and I recollect playing that I was a target and standing up
to be shot at in a bright light. After that I woke up to the really
important things of life--among which supper is not one."
Langham and MacWilliams looked at each other doubtfully, and Langham
shook his head.
"Get down off that box," he commanded. "If you and Hope think this is
merely a pleasant moonlight drive, we don't. You two can sit in the
carriage now, and we'll take a turn at driving, and we'll guarantee to
get you to some place soon."
Clay and Hope descended meekly and seated themselves under the hood,
where they could look out upon the moonlit road as it unrolled behind
them. But they were no longer to enjoy their former leisurely
progress. The new whip lashed his horses into a gallop, and the trees
flew past them on either hand.
"Do you remember that chap in the 'Last Ride Together'?" said Clay.
"I and my mistress, side by side,
Shall be together--forever ride,
And so one more day am I deified.
Who knows--the world may end to-night."
Hope laughed triumphantly, and threw out her arms as though she would
embrace the whole beautiful world that stretched around them.
"Oh, no," she laughed. "To-night the world has just begun."
The carriage stopped, and there was a confusion of voices on the
box-seat, and then a great barking of dogs, and they beheld MacWilliams
beating and kicking at the door of a hut. The door opened for an inch,
and there was a long debate in Spanish, and finally the door was closed
again, and a light appeared through the windows. A few minutes later a
man and woman came out of the hut, shivering and yawning, and made a
fire in the sun-baked oven at the side of the house. Hope and Clay
remained seated in the carriage, and watched the flames springing up
from the oily fagots, and the boys moving about with flaring torches of
pine, pulling down bundles of fodder for the horses from the roof of
the kitchen, while two sleepy girls disappeared toward a mountain
stream, one carrying a jar on her shoulder, and the other lighting the
way with a torch. Hope sat with her chin on her hand, watching the
black figures passing between them and the fire, and standing above it
with its light on their faces, shading their eyes from the heat with
one hand, and stirring something in a smoking caldron with the other.
Hope felt an overflowing sense of gratitude to these simple strangers
for the trouble they were taking. She felt how good every one was, and
how wonderfully kind and generous was the world that she lived in.
Her brother came over to the carriage and bowed with mock courtesy.
"I trust, now that we have done all the work," he said, "that your
excellencies will condescend to share our frugal fare, or must we bring
it to you here?"
The clay oven stood in the middle of a hut of laced twigs, through
which the smoke drifted freely. There was a row of wooden benches
around it, and they all seated themselves and ate ravenously of rice
and fried plantains, while the woman patted and tossed tortillas
between her hands, eyeing her guests curiously. Her glance fell upon
Langham's shoulder, and rested there for so long that Hope followed the
direction of her eyes. She leaped to her feet with a cry of fear and
reproach, and ran toward her brother.
"Ted!" she cried, "you are hurt! you are wounded, and you never told
me! What is it? Is it very bad?" Clay crossed the floor in a stride,
his face full of concern.
"Leave me alone!" cried the stern brother, backing away and warding
them off with the coffeepot. "It's only scratched. You'll spill the
coffee."
But at the sight of the blood Hope had turned very white, and throwing
her arms around her brother's neck, hid her eyes on his other shoulder
and began to cry.
"I am so selfish," she sobbed. "I have been so happy and you were
suffering all the time."
Her brother stared at the others in dismay. "What nonsense," he said,
patting her on the shoulder. "You're a bit tired, and you need rest.
That's what you need. The idea of my sister going off in hysterics
after behaving like such a sport--and before these young ladies, too.
Aren't you ashamed?"
"I should think they'd be ashamed," said MacWilliams, severely, as he
continued placidly with his supper. "They haven't got enough clothes
on."
Langham looked over Hope's shoulder at Clay and nodded significantly.
"She's been on a good deal of a strain," he explained apologetically,
"and no wonder; it's been rather an unusual night for her."
Hope raised her head and smiled at him through her tears. Then she
turned and moved toward Clay. She brushed her eyes with the back of
her hand and laughed. "It has been an unusual night," she said.
"Shall I tell him?" she asked.
Clay straightened himself unconsciously, and stepped beside her and
took her hand; MacWilliams quickly lowered to the bench the dish from
which he was eating, and stood up, too. The people of the house stared
at the group in the firelight with puzzled interest, at the beautiful
young girl, and at the tall, sunburned young man at her side. Langham
looked from his sister to Clay and back again, and laughed uneasily.
"Langham, I have been very bold," said Clay. "I have asked your sister
to marry me--and she has said that she would."
Langham flushed as red as his sister. He felt himself at a
disadvantage in the presence of a love as great and strong as he knew
this must be. It made him seem strangely young and inadequate. He
crossed over to his sister awkwardly and kissed her, and then took
Clay's hand, and the three stood together and looked at one another,
and there was no sign of doubt or question in the face of any one of
them. They stood so for some little time, smiling and exclaiming
together, and utterly unconscious of anything but their own delight and
happiness. MacWilliams watched them, his face puckered into odd
wrinkles and his eyes half-closed. Hope suddenly broke away from the
others and turned toward him with her hands held out.
"Have you nothing to say to me, Mr. MacWilliams?" she asked.
MacWilliams looked doubtfully at Clay, as though from force of habit he
must ask advice from his chief first, and then took the hands that she
held out to him and shook them up and down. His usual confidence
seemed to have forsaken him, and he stood, shifting from one foot to
the other, smiling and abashed.
"Well, I always said they didn't make them any better than you," he
gasped at last. "I was always telling him that, wasn't I?" He nodded
energetically at Clay. "And that's so; they don't make 'em any better
than you."
He dropped her hands and crossed over to Clay, and stood surveying him
with a smile of wonder and admiration.
"How'd you do it?" he demanded. "How did you do it? I suppose you
know," he asked sternly, "that you're not good enough for Miss Hope?
You know that, don't you?"
"Of course I know that," said Clay.
MacWilliams walked toward the door and stood in it for a second,
looking back at them over his shoulder. "They don't make them any
better than that," he reiterated gravely, and disappeared in the
direction of the horses, shaking his head and muttering his
astonishment and delight.
"Please give me some money," Hope said to Clay. "All the money you
have," she added, smiling at her presumption of authority over him,
"and you, too, Ted." The men emptied their pockets, and Hope poured
the mass of silver into the hands of the women, who gazed at it
uncomprehendingly.
"Thank you for your trouble and your good supper," Hope said in
Spanish, "and may no evil come to your house."
The woman and her daughters followed her to the carriage, bowing and
uttering good wishes in the extravagant metaphor of their country; and
as they drove away, Hope waved her hand to them as she sank closer
against Clay's shoulder.
"The world is full of such kind and gentle souls," she said.
In an hour they had regained the main road, and a little later the
stars grew dim and the moonlight faded, and trees and bushes and rocks
began to take substance and to grow into form and outline. They saw by
the cool, gray light of the morning the familiar hills around the
capital, and at a cry from the boys on the box-seat, they looked ahead
and beheld the harbor of Valencia at their feet, lying as placid and
undisturbed as the water in a bath-tub. As they turned up the hill
into the road that led to the Palms, they saw the sleeping capital like
a city of the dead below them, its white buildings reddened with the
light of the rising sun. From three places in different parts of the
city, thick columns of smoke rose lazily to the sky.
"I had forgotten!" said Clay; "they have been having a revolution here.
It seems so long ago."
By five o'clock they had reached the gate of the Palms, and their
appearance startled the sentry on post into a state of undisciplined
joy. A riderless pony, the one upon which Jose' had made his escape
when the firing began, had crept into the stable an hour previous,
stiff and bruised and weary, and had led the people at the Palms to
fear the worst.
Mr. Langham and his daughter were standing on the veranda as the horses
came galloping up the avenue. They had been awake all the night, and
the face of each was white and drawn with anxiety and loss of sleep.
Mr. Langham caught Hope in his arms and held her face close to his in
silence.
"Where have you been?" he said at last. "Why did you treat me like
this? You knew how I would suffer."
"I could not help it," Hope cried. "I had to go with Madame Alvarez."
Her sister had suffered as acutely as had Mr. Langham himself, as long
as she was in ignorance of Hope's whereabouts. But now that she saw
Hope in the flesh again, she felt a reaction against her for the
anxiety and distress she had caused them.
"My dear Hope," she said, "is every one to be sacrificed for Madame
Alvarez? What possible use could you be to her at such a time? It was
not the time nor the place for a young girl. You were only another
responsibility for the men."
"Clay seemed willing to accept the responsibility," said Langham,
without a smile. "And, besides," he added, "if Hope had not been with
us we might never have reached home alive."
But it was only after much earnest protest and many explanations that
Mr. Langham was pacified, and felt assured that his son's wound was not
dangerous, and that his daughter was quite safe.
Miss Langham and himself, he said, had passed a trying night. There had
been much firing in the city, and continual uproar. The houses of
several of the friends of Alvarez had been burned and sacked. Alvarez
himself had been shot as soon as he had entered the yard of the
military prison. It was then given out that he had committed suicide.
Mendoza had not dared to kill Rojas, because of the feeling of the
people toward him, and had even shown him to the mob from behind the
bars of one of the windows in order to satisfy them that he was still
living. The British Minister had sent to the Palace for the body of
Captain Stuart, and had had it escorted to the Legation, from whence it
would be sent to England. This, as far as Mr. Langham had heard, was
the news of the night just over.
"Two native officers called here for you about midnight, Clay," he
continued, "and they are still waiting for you below at your office.
They came from Rojas's troops, who are encamped on the hills at the
other side of the city. They wanted you to join them with the men from
the mines. I told them I did not know when you would return, and they
said they would wait. If you could have been here last night, it is
possible that we might have done something, but now that it is all
over, I am glad that you saved that woman instead. I should have
liked, though, to have struck one blow at them. But we cannot hope to
win against assassins. The death of young Stuart has hurt me terribly,
and the murder of Alvarez, coming on top of it, has made me wish I had
never heard of nor seen Olancho. I have decided to go away at once, on
the next steamer, and I will take my daughters with me, and Ted, too.
The State Department at Washington can fight with Mendoza for the
mines. You made a good stand, but they made a better one, and they
have beaten us. Mendoza's coup d'etat has passed into history, and the
revolution is at an end."
On his arrival Clay had at once asked for a cigar, and while Mr.
Langham was speaking he had been biting it between his teeth, with the
serious satisfaction of a man who had been twelve hours without one.
He knocked the ashes from it and considered the burning end
thoughtfully. Then he glanced at Hope as she stood among the group on
the veranda. She was waiting for his reply and watching him intently.
He seemed to be confident that she would approve of the only course he
saw open to him.
"The revolution is not at an end by any means, Mr. Langham," he said at
last, simply. "It has just begun." He turned abruptly and walked away
in the direction of the office, and MacWilliams and Langham stepped off
the veranda and followed him as a matter of course.
The soldiers in the army who were known to be faithful to General Rojas
belonged to the Third and Fourth regiments, and numbered four thousand
on paper, and two thousand by count of heads. When they had seen their
leader taken prisoner, and swept off the parade-ground by Mendoza's
cavalry, they had first attempted to follow in pursuit and recapture
him, but the men on horseback had at once shaken off the men on foot
and left them, panting and breathless, in the dust behind them. So
they halted uncertainly in the road, and their young officers held
counsel together. They first considered the advisability of attacking
the military prison, but decided against doing so, as it would lead,
they feared, whether it proved successful or not, to the murder of
Rojas. It was impossible to return to the city where Mendoza's First
and Second regiments greatly outnumbered them. Having no leader and no
headquarters, the officers marched the men to the hills above the city
and went into camp to await further developments.
Throughout the night they watched the illumination of the city and of
the boats in the harbor below them; they saw the flames bursting from
the homes of the members of Alvarez's Cabinet, and when the morning
broke they beheld the grounds of the Palace swarming with Mendoza's
troops, and the red and white barred flag of the revolution floating
over it. The news of the assassination of Alvarez and the fact that
Rojas had been spared for fear of the people, had been carried to them
early in the evening, and with this knowledge of their General's safety
hope returned and fresh plans were discussed. By midnight they had
definitely decided that should Mendoza attempt to dislodge them the
next morning, they would make a stand, but that if the fight went
against them, they would fall back along the mountain roads to the
Valencia mines, where they hoped to persuade the fifteen hundred
soldiers there installed to join forces with them against the new
Dictator.
In order to assure themselves of this help, a messenger was despatched
by a circuitous route to the Palms, to ask the aid of the resident
director, and another was sent to the mines to work upon the feelings
of the soldiers themselves. The officer who had been sent to the Palms
to petition Clay for the loan of his soldier-workmen, had decided to
remain until Clay returned, and another messenger had been sent after
him from the camp on the same errand.
These two lieutenants greeted Clay with enthusiasm, but he at once
interrupted them, and began plying them with questions as to where
their camp was situated and what roads led from it to the Palms.
"Bring your men at once to this end of our railroad," he said. "It is
still early, and the revolutionists will sleep late. They are drugged
with liquor and worn out with excitement, and whatever may have been
their intentions toward you last night, they will be late in putting
them into practice this morning. I will telegraph Kirkland to come up
at once with all of his soldiers and with his three hundred Irishmen.
Allowing him a half-hour to collect them and to get his flat cars
together, and another half-hour in which to make the run, he should be
here by half-past six--and that's quick mobilization. You ride back now
and march your men here at a double-quick. With your two thousand we
shall have in all three thousand and eight hundred men. I must have
absolute control over my own troops. Otherwise I shall act
independently of you and go into the city alone with my workmen."
"That is unnecessary," said one of the lieutenants. "We have no
officers. If you do not command us, there is no one else to do it. We
promise that our men will follow you and give you every obedience.
They have been led by foreigners before, by young Captain Stuart and
Major Fergurson and Colonel Shrevington. They know how highly General
Rojas thinks of you, and they know that you have led Continental armies
in Europe."
"Well, don't tell them I haven't until this is over," said Clay. "Now,
ride hard, gentlemen, and bring your men here as quickly as possible."
The lieutenants thanked him effusively and galloped away, radiant at
the success of their mission, and Clay entered the office where
MacWilliams was telegraphing his orders to Kirkland. He seated himself
beside the instrument, and from time to time answered the questions
Kirkland sent back to him over the wire, and in the intervals of
silence thought of Hope. It was the first time he had gone into action
feeling the touch of a woman's hand upon his sleeve, and he was fearful
lest she might think he had considered her too lightly.
He took a piece of paper from the table and wrote a few lines upon it,
and then rewrote them several times. The message he finally sent to
her was this: "I am sure you understand, and that you would not have
me give up beaten now, when what we do to-day may set us right again.
I know better than any one else in the world can know, what I run the
risk of losing, but you would not have that fear stop me from going on
with what we have been struggling for so long. I cannot come back to
see you before we start, but I know your heart is with me. With great
love, Robert Clay."
He gave the note to his servant, and the answer was brought to him
almost immediately. Hope had not rewritten her message: "I love you
because you are the sort of man you are, and had you given up as father
wished you to do, or on my account, you would have been some one else,
and I would have had to begin over again to learn to love you for some
different reasons. I know that you will come back to me bringing your
sheaves with you. Nothing can happen to you now. Hope."
He had never received a line from her before, and he read and reread
this with a sense of such pride and happiness in his face that
MacWilliams smiled covertly and bent his eyes upon his instrument.
Clay went back into his room and kissed the page of paper gently,
flushing like a boy as he did so, and then folding it carefully, he put
it away beneath his jacket. He glanced about him guiltily, although he
was quite alone, and taking out his watch, pried it open and looked
down into the face of the photograph that had smiled up at him from it
for so many years. He thought how unlike it was to Alice Langham as he
knew her. He judged that it must have been taken when she was very
young, at the age Hope was then, before the little world she lived in
had crippled and narrowed her and marked her for its own. He
remembered what she had said to him the first night he had seen her.
"That is the picture of the girl who ceased to exist four years ago,
and whom you have never met." He wondered if she had ever existed.
"It looks more like Hope than her sister," he mused. "It looks very
much like Hope." He decided that he would let it remain where it was
until Hope gave him a better one; and smiling slightly he snapped the
lid fast, as though he were closing a door on the face of Alice Langham
and locking it forever.
Kirkland was in the cab of the locomotive that brought the soldiers
from the mine. He stopped the first car in front of the freight
station until the workmen had filed out and formed into a double line
on the platform. Then he moved the train forward the length of that
car, and those in the one following were mustered out in a similar
manner. As the cars continued to come in, the men at the head of the
double line passed on through the freight station and on up the road to
the city in an unbroken column. There was no confusion, no crowding,
and no haste.
When the last car had been emptied, Clay rode down the line and
appointed a foreman to take charge of each company, stationing his
engineers and the Irish-Americans in the van. It looked more like a
mob than a regiment. None of the men were in uniform, and the native
soldiers were barefoot. But they showed a winning spirit, and stood in
as orderly an array as though they were drawn up in line to receive
their month's wages. The Americans in front of the column were
humorously disposed, and inclined to consider the whole affair as a
pleasant outing. They had been placed in front, not because they were
better shots than the natives, but because every South American thinks
that every citizen of the United States is a master either of the rifle
or the revolver, and Clay was counting on this superstition. His
assistant engineers and foremen hailed him as he rode on up and down
the line with good-natured cheers, and asked him when they were to get
their commissions, and if it were true that they were all captains, or
only colonels, as they were at home.
They had been waiting for a half-hour, when there was the sound of
horses' hoofs on the road, and the even beat of men's feet, and the
advance guard of the Third and Fourth regiments came toward them at a
quickstep. The men were still in the full-dress uniforms they had worn
at the review the day before, and in comparison with the
soldier-workmen and the Americans in flannel shirts, they presented so
martial a showing that they were welcomed with tumultuous cheers. Clay
threw them into a double line on one side of the road, down the length
of which his own marched until they had reached the end of it nearest
to the city, when they took up their position in a close formation, and
the native regiments fell in behind them. Clay selected twenty of the
best shots from among the engineers and sent them on ahead as a
skirmish line. They were ordered to fall back at once if they saw any
sign of the enemy. In this order the column of four thousand men
started for the city.
It was a little after seven when they advanced, and the air was mild
and peaceful. Men and women came crowding to the doors and windows of
the huts as they passed, and stood watching them in silence, not
knowing to which party the small army might belong. In order to
enlighten them, Clay shouted, "Viva Rojas." And his men took it up,
and the people answered gladly.
They had reached the closely built portion of the city when the
skirmish line came running back to say that it had been met by a
detachment of Mendoza's cavalry, who had galloped away as soon as they
saw them. There was then no longer any doubt that the fact of their
coming was known at the Palace, and Clay halted his men in a bare plaza
and divided them into three columns. Three streets ran parallel with
one another from this plaza to the heart of the city, and opened
directly upon the garden of the Palace where Mendoza had fortified
himself. Clay directed the columns to advance up these streets,
keeping the head of each column in touch with the other two. At the
word they were to pour down the side streets and rally to each other's
assistance.
As they stood, drawn up on the three sides of the plaza, he rode out
before them and held up his hat for silence. They were there with arms
in their hands, he said, for two reasons: the greater one, and the one
which he knew actuated the native soldiers, was their desire to
preserve the Constitution of the Republic. According to their own laws,
the Vice-President must succeed when the President's term of office had
expired, or in the event of his death. President Alvarez had been
assassinated, and the Vice-President, General Rojas, was, in
consequence, his legal successor. It was their duty, as soldiers of
the Republic, to rescue him from prison, to drive the man who had
usurped his place into exile, and by so doing uphold the laws which
they had themselves laid down. The second motive, he went on, was a
less worthy and more selfish one. The Olancho mines, which now gave
work to thousands and brought millions of dollars into the country,
were coveted by Mendoza, who would, if he could, convert them into a
monopoly of his government. If he remained in power all foreigners
would be driven out of the country, and the soldiers would be forced to
work in the mines without payment. Their condition would be little
better than that of the slaves in the salt mines of Siberia. Not only
would they no longer be paid for their labor, but the people as a whole
would cease to receive that share of the earnings of the mines which
had hitherto been theirs.
"Under President Rojas you will have liberty, justice, and prosperity,"
Clay cried. "Under Mendoza you will be ruled by martial law. He will
rob and overtax you, and you will live through a reign of terror.
Between them--which will you choose?"
The native soldiers answered by cries of "Rojas," and breaking ranks
rushed across the plaza toward him, crowding around his horse and
shouting, "Long live Rojas," "Long live the Constitution," "Death to
Mendoza." The Americans stood as they were and gave three cheers for
the Government.
They were still cheering and shouting as they advanced upon the Palace,
and the noise of their coming drove the people indoors, so that they
marched through deserted streets and between closed doors and sightless
windows. No one opposed them, and no one encouraged them. But they
could now see the facade of the Palace and the flag of the
Revolutionists hanging from the mast in front of it.
Three blocks distant from the Palace they came upon the buildings of
the United States and English Legations, where the flags of the two
countries had been hung out over the narrow thoroughfare.
The windows and the roofs of each legation were crowded with women and
children who had sought refuge there, and the column halted as Weimer,
the Consul, and Sir Julian Pindar, the English Minister, came out,
bare-headed, into the street and beckoned to Clay to stop.
"As our Minister was not here," Weimer said, "I telegraphed to Truxillo
for the man-of-war there. She started some time ago, and we have just
heard that she is entering the lower harbor. She should have her
blue-jackets on shore in twenty minutes. Sir Julian and I think you
ought to wait for them."
The English Minister put a detaining hand on Clay's bridle. "If you
attack Mendoza at the Palace with this mob," he remonstrated, "rioting
and lawlessness generally will break out all over the city. I ask you
to keep them back until we get your sailors to police the streets and
protect property."
Clay glanced over his shoulder at the engineers and the Irish workmen
standing in solemn array behind him. "Oh, you can hardly call this a
mob," he said. "They look a little rough and ready, but I will answer
for them. The two other columns that are coming up the streets
parallel to this are Government troops and properly engaged in driving
a usurper out of the Government building. The best thing you can do is
to get down to the wharf and send the marines and blue-jackets where
you think they will do the most good. I can't wait for them. And they
can't come too soon."
The grounds of the Palace occupied two entire blocks; the Botanical
Gardens were in the rear, and in front a series of low terraces ran
down from its veranda to the high iron fence which separated the
grounds from the chief thoroughfare of the city.
Clay sent word to the left and right wing of his little army to make a
detour one street distant from the Palace grounds and form in the
street in the rear of the Botanical Gardens. When they heard the
firing of his men from the front they were to force their way through
the gates at the back and attack the Palace in the rear.
"Mendoza has the place completely barricaded," Weimer warned him, "and
he has three field pieces covering each of these streets. You and your
men are directly in line of one of them now. He is only waiting for
you to get a little nearer before he lets loose."
From where he sat Clay could count the bars of the iron fence in front
of the grounds. But the boards that backed them prevented his forming
any idea of the strength or the distribution of Mendoza's forces. He
drew his staff of amateur officers to one side and explained the
situation to them.
"The Theatre National and the Club Union," he said, "face the Palace
from the opposite corners of this street. You must get into them and
barricade the windows and throw up some sort of shelter for yourselves
along the edge of the roofs and drive the men behind that fence back to
the Palace. Clear them away from the cannon first, and keep them away
from it. I will be waiting in the street below. When you have driven
them back, we will charge the gates and have it out with them in the
gardens. The Third and Fourth regiments ought to take them in the rear
about the same time. You will continue to pick them off from the roof."
The two supporting columns had already started on their roundabout way
to the rear of the Palace. Clay gathered up his reins, and telling his
men to keep close to the walls, started forward, his soldiers following
on the sidewalks and leaving the middle of the street clear. As they
reached a point a hundred yards below the Palace, a part of the wooden
shield behind the fence was thrown down, there was a puff of white
smoke and a report, and a cannon-ball struck the roof of a house which
they were passing and sent the tiles clattering about their heads. But
the men in the lead had already reached the stage-door of the theatre
and were opposite one of the doors to the club. They drove these in
with the butts of their rifles, and raced up the stairs of each of the
deserted buildings until they reached the roof. Langham was swept by a
weight of men across a stage, and jumped among the music racks in the
orchestra. He caught a glimpse of the early morning sun shining on the
tawdry hangings of the boxes and the exaggerated perspective of the
scenery. He ran through corridors between two great statues of Comedy
and Tragedy, and up a marble stair case to a lobby in which he saw the
white faces about him multiplied in long mirrors, and so out to an iron
balcony from which he looked down, panting and breathless, upon the
Palace Gardens, swarming with soldiers and white with smoke. Men
poured through the windows of the club opposite, dragging sofas and
chairs out to the balcony and upon the flat roof. The men near him
were tearing down the yellow silk curtains in the lobby and draping
them along the railing of the balcony to better conceal their movements
from the enemy below. Bullets spattered the stucco about their heads,
and panes of glass broke suddenly and fell in glittering particles upon
their shoulders. The firing had already begun from the roofs near
them. Beyond the club and the theatre and far along the street on each
side of the Palace the merchants were slamming the iron shutters of
their shops, and men and women were running for refuge up the high
steps of the church of Santa Maria. Others were gathered in black
masses on the balconies and roofs of the more distant houses, where
they stood outlined against the soft blue sky in gigantic silhouette.
Their shouts of encouragement and anger carried clearly in the morning
air, and spurred on the gladiators below to greater effort. In the
Palace Gardens a line of Mendoza's men fought from behind the first
barricade, while others dragged tables and bedding and chairs across
the green terraces and tumbled them down to those below, who seized
them and formed them into a second line of defence.
Two of the assistant engineers were kneeling at Langham's feet with the
barrels of their rifles resting on the railing of the balcony. Their
eyes had been trained for years to judge distances and to measure
space, and they glanced along the sights of their rifles as though they
were looking through the lens of a transit, and at each report their
faces grew more earnest and their lips pressed tighter together. One
of them lowered his gun to light a cigarette, and Langham handed him
his match-box, with a certain feeling of repugnance.
"Better get under cover, Mr. Langham," the man said, kindly. "There's
no use our keeping your mines for you if you're not alive to enjoy
them. Take a shot at that crew around the gun."
"I don't like this long range business," Langham answered. "I am going
down to join Clay. I don't like the idea of hitting a man when he
isn't looking at you."
The engineer gave an incredulous laugh.
"If he isn't looking at you, he's aiming at the man next to you. 'Live
and let Live' doesn't apply at present."
As Langham reached Clay's side triumphant shouts arose from the
roof-tops, and the men posted there stood up and showed themselves
above the barricades and called to Clay that the cannon were deserted.
Kirkland had come prepared for the barricade, and, running across the
street, fastened a dynamite cartridge to each gate post and lit the
fuses. The soldiers scattered before him as he came leaping back, and
in an instant later there was a racking roar, and the gates were
pitched out of their sockets and thrown forward, and those in the
street swept across them and surrounded the cannon.
Langham caught it by the throat as though it were human, and did not
feel the hot metal burning the palms of his hands as he choked it and
pointed its muzzle toward the Palace, while the others dragged at the
spokes of the wheel. It was fighting at close range now, close enough
to suit even Langham. He found himself in the front rank of it without
knowing exactly how he got there. Every man on both sides was playing
his own hand, and seemed to know exactly what to do. He felt neglected
and very much alone, and was somewhat anxious lest his valor might be
wasted through his not knowing how to put it to account. He saw the
enemy in changing groups of scowling men, who seemed to eye him for an
instant down the length of a gun-barrel and then disappear behind a
puff of smoke. He kept thinking that war made men take strange
liberties with their fellow-men, and it struck him as being most absurd
that strangers should stand up and try to kill one another, men who had
so little in common that they did not even know one another's names.
The soldiers who were fighting on his own side were equally unknown to
him, and he looked in vain for Clay. He saw MacWilliams for a moment
through the smoke, jabbing at a jammed cartridge with his pen-knife,
and hacking the lead away to make it slip. He was remonstrating with
the gun and swearing at it exactly as though it were human, and as
Langham ran toward him he threw it away and caught up another from the
ground. Kneeling beside the wounded man who had dropped it and picking
the cartridges from his belt, he assured him cheerfully that he was not
so badly hurt as he thought.
"You all right?" Langham asked.
"I'm all right. I'm trying to get a little laddie hiding behind that
blue silk sofa over there. He's taken an unnatural dislike to me, and
he's nearly got me three times. I'm knocking horse-hair out of his
rampart, though."
The men of Stuart's body-guard were fighting outside of the breastworks
and mattresses. They were using their swords as though they were
machetes, and the Irishmen were swinging their guns around their
shoulders like sledge-hammers, and beating their foes over the head and
breast. The guns at his own side sounded close at Langham's ear, and
deafened him, and those of the enemy exploded so near to his face that
he was kept continually winking and dodging, as though he were being
taken by a flashlight photograph. When he fired he aimed where the
mass was thickest, so that he might not see what his bullet did, but he
remembered afterward that he always reloaded with the most anxious
swiftness in order that he might not be killed before he had had
another shot, and that the idea of being killed was of no concern to
him except on that account. Then the scene before him changed, and
apparently hundreds of Mendoza's soldiers poured out from the Palace
and swept down upon him, cheering as they came, and he felt himself
falling back naturally and as a matter of course, as he would have
stepped out of the way of a locomotive, or a runaway horse, or any
other unreasoning thing. His shoulders pushed against a mass of
shouting, sweating men, who in turn pressed back upon others, until the
mass reached the iron fence and could move no farther. He heard Clay's
voice shouting to them, and saw him run forward, shooting rapidly as he
ran, and he followed him, even though his reason told him it was a
useless thing to do, and then there came a great shout from the rear of
the Palace, and more soldiers, dressed exactly like the others, rushed
through the great doors and swarmed around the two wings of the
building, and he recognized them as Rojas's men and knew that the fight
was over.
He saw a tall man with a negro's face spring out of the first mass of
soldiers and shout to them to follow him. Clay gave a yell of welcome
and ran at him, calling upon him in Spanish to surrender. The negro
stopped and stood at bay, glaring at Clay and at the circle of soldiers
closing in around him. He raised his revolver and pointed it steadily.
It was as though the man knew he had only a moment to live, and meant
to do that one thing well in the short time left him.
Clay sprang to one side and ran toward him, dodging to the right and
left, but Mendoza followed his movements carefully with his revolver.
It lasted but an instant. Then the Spaniard threw his arm suddenly
across his face, drove the heel of his boot into the turf, and spinning
about on it fell forward.
"If he was shot where his sash crosses his heart, I know the man who
did it," Langham heard a voice say at his elbow, and turning saw
MacWilliams wetting his fingers at his lips and touching them gingerly
to the heated barrel of his Winchester.
The death of Mendoza left his followers without a leader and without a
cause. They threw their muskets on the ground and held their hands
above their heads, shrieking for mercy. Clay and his officers answered
them instantly by running from one group to another, knocking up the
barrels of the rifles and calling hoarsely to the men on the roofs to
cease firing, and as they were obeyed the noise of the last few random
shots was drowned in tumultuous cheering and shouts of exultation,
that, starting in the gardens, were caught up by those in the streets
and passed on quickly as a line of flame along the swaying housetops.
The native officers sprang upon Clay and embraced him after their
fashion, hailing him as the Liberator of Olancho, as the Preserver of
the Constitution, and their brother patriot. Then one of them climbed
to the top of a gilt and marble table and proclaimed him military
President.
"You'll proclaim yourself an idiot, if you don't get down from there,"
Clay said, laughing. "I thank you for permitting me to serve with you,
gentlemen. I shall have great pleasure in telling our President how
well you acquitted yourself in this row--battle, I mean. And now I
would suggest that you store the prisoners' weapons in the Palace and
put a guard over them, and then conduct the men themselves to the
military prison, where you can release General Rojas and escort him
back to the city in a triumphal procession. You'd like that, wouldn't
you?"
But the natives protested that that honor was for him alone. Clay
declined it, pleading that he must look after his wounded.
"I can hardly believe there are any dead," he said to Kirkland.
"For, if it takes two thousand bullets to kill a man in European
warfare, it must require about two hundred thousand to kill a man in
South America."
He told Kirkland to march his men back to the mines and to see that
there were no stragglers. "If they want to celebrate, let them
celebrate when they get to the mines, but not here. They have made a
good record to-day and I won't have it spoiled by rioting. They shall
have their reward later. Between Rojas and Mr. Langham they should all
be rich men."
The cheering from the housetops since the firing ceased had changed
suddenly into hand-clappings, and the cries, though still
undistinguishable, were of a different sound. Clay saw that the
Americans on the balconies of the club and of the theatre had thrown
themselves far over the railings and were all looking in the same
direction and waving their hats and cheering loudly, and he heard above
the shouts of the people the regular tramp of men's feet marching in
step, and the rattle of a machine gun as it bumped and shook over the
rough stones. He gave a shout of pleasure, and Kirkland and the two
boys ran with him up the slope, crowding each other to get a better
view. The mob parted at the Palace gates, and they saw two lines of
blue-jackets, spread out like the sticks of a fan, dragging the gun
between them, the middies in their tight-buttoned tunics and gaiters,
and behind them more blue-jackets with bare, bronzed throats, and with
the swagger and roll of the sea in their legs and shoulders. An
American flag floated above the white helmets of the marines. Its
presence and the sense of pride which the sight of these men from home
awoke in them made the fight just over seem mean and petty, and they
took off their hats and cheered with the others.
A first lieutenant, who felt his importance and also a sense of
disappointment at having arrived too late to see the fighting, left his
men at the gate of the Palace, and advanced up the terrace, stopping to
ask for information as he came. Each group to which he addressed
himself pointed to Clay. The sight of his own flag had reminded Clay
that the banner of Mendoza still hung from the mast beside which he was
standing, and as the officer approached he was busily engaged in
untwisting its halyards and pulling it down.
The lieutenant saluted him doubtfully.
"Can you tell me who is in command here?" he asked. He spoke somewhat
sharply, for Clay was not a military looking personage, covered as he
was with dust and perspiration, and with his sombrero on the back of
his head.
"Our Consul here told us at the landing-place," continued the
lieutenant in an aggrieved tone, "that a General Mendoza was in power,
and that I had better report to him, and then ten minutes later I hear
that he is dead and that a General Rojas is President, but that a man
named Clay has made himself Dictator. My instructions are to recognize
no belligerents, but to report to the Government party. Now, who is
the Government party?"
Clay brought the red-barred flag down with a jerk, and ripped it free
from the halyards. Kirkland and the two boys were watching him with
amused smiles.
"I appreciate your difficulty," he said. "President Alvarez is dead,
and General Mendoza, who tried to make himself Dictator, is also dead,
and the real President, General Rojas, is still in jail. So at present
I suppose that I represent the Government party, at least I am the man
named Clay. It hadn't occurred to me before, but, until Rojas is free,
I guess I am the Dictator of Olancho. Is Madame Alvarez on board your
ship?"
"Yes, she is with us," the officer replied, in some confusion. "Excuse
me--are you the three gentlemen who took her to the yacht? I am afraid
I spoke rather hastily just now, but you are not in uniform, and the
Government seems to change so quickly down here that a stranger finds
it hard to keep up with it."
Six of the native officers had approached as the lieutenant was
speaking and saluted Clay gravely. "We have followed your
instructions," one of them said, "and the regiments are ready to march
with the prisoners. Have you any further orders for us--can we deliver
any messages to General Rojas?"
"Present my congratulations to General Rojas, and best wishes," said
Clay. "And tell him for me, that it would please me greatly if he
would liberate an American citizen named Burke, who is at present in
the cuartel. And that I wish him to promote all of you gentlemen one
grade and give each of you the Star of Olancho. Tell him that in my
opinion you have deserved even higher reward and honor at his hands."
The boy-lieutenants broke out into a chorus of delighted thanks. They
assured Clay that he was most gracious; that he overwhelmed them, and
that it was honor enough for them that they had served under him. But
Clay laughed, and drove them off with a paternal wave of the hand.
The officer from the man-of-war listened with an uncomfortable sense of
having blundered in his manner toward this powder-splashed young man
who set American citizens at liberty, and created captains by the
half-dozen at a time.
"Are you from the States?" he asked as they moved toward the
man-of-war's men.
"I am, thank God. Why not?"
"I thought you were, but you saluted like an Englishman."
"I was an officer in the English army once in the Soudan, when they
were short of officers." Clay shook his head and looked wistfully at
the ranks of the blue-jackets drawn up on either side of them. The
horses had been brought out and Langham and MacWilliams were waiting
for him to mount. "I have worn several uniforms since I was a boy,"
said Clay. "But never that of my own country."
The people were cheering him from every part of the square. Women waved
their hands from balconies and housetops, and men climbed to awnings
and lampposts and shouted his name. The officers and men of the
landing party took note of him and of this reception out of the corner
of their eyes, and wondered.
"And what had I better do?" asked the commanding officer.
"Oh, I would police the Palace grounds, if I were you, and picket that
street at the right, where there are so many wine shops, and preserve
order generally until Rojas gets here. He won't be more than an hour,
now. We shall be coming over to pay our respects to your captain
to-morrow. Glad to have met you."
"Well, I'm glad to have met you," answered the officer, heartily.
"Hold on a minute. Even if you haven't worn our uniform, you're as
good, and better, than some I've seen that have, and you're a sort of a
commander-in-chief, anyway, and I'm damned if I don't give you a sort
of salute."
Clay laughed like a boy as he swung himself into the saddle. The
officer stepped back and gave the command; the middies raised their
swords and Clay passed between massed rows of his countrymen with their
muskets held rigidly toward him. The housetops rocked again at the
sight, and as he rode out into the brilliant sunshine, his eyes were
wet and winking.
The two boys had drawn up at his side, but MacWilliams had turned in
the saddle and was still looking toward the Palace, with his hand
resting on the hindquarters of his pony.
"Look back, Clay," he said. "Take a last look at it, you'll never see
it after to-day. Turn again, turn again, Dictator of Olancho."
The men laughed and drew rein as he bade them, and looked back up the
narrow street. They saw the green and white flag of Olancho creeping
to the top of the mast before the Palace, the blue-jackets driving back
the crowd, the gashes in the walls of the houses, where Mendoza's
cannonballs had dug their way through the stucco, and the silk
curtains, riddled with bullets, flapping from the balconies of the
opera-house.
"You had it all your own way an hour ago," MacWilliams said, mockingly.
"You could have sent Rojas into exile, and made us all Cabinet
Ministers--and you gave it up for a girl. Now, you're Dictator of
Olancho. What will you be to-morrow? To-morrow you will be Andrew
Langham's son-in-law--Benedict, the married man. Andrew Langham's
son-in-law cannot ask his wife to live in such a hole as this,
so--Goodbye, Mr. Clay. We have been long together."
Clay and Langham looked curiously at the boy to see if he were in
earnest, but MacWilliams would not meet their eyes.
"There were three of us," he said, "and one got shot, and one got
married, and the third--? You will grow fat, Clay, and live on Fifth
Avenue and wear a high silk hat, and some day when you're sitting in
your club you'll read a paragraph in a newspaper with a queer Spanish
date-line to it, and this will all come back to you,--this heat, and
the palms, and the fever, and the days when you lived on plantains and
we watched our trestles grow out across the canons, and you'll be
willing to give your hand to sleep in a hammock again, and to feel the
sweat running down your back, and you'll want to chuck your gun up
against your chin and shoot into a line of men, and the policemen won't
let you, and your wife won't let you. That's what you're giving up.
There it is. Take a good look at it. You'll never see it again."