“You are the United States Consul?” I asked. The young man nodded
briskly.
“Yes; I am. Where do you come from?”
“Dobbs Ferry, near New York,” I answered. “I’d---I’d like to have a talk
with you, when you are not busy.”
“That’s all right,” he said. “I’m not busy now. That bumboat pirate
queered the only business I had. Where are you going to stop? There is
only one place,” he explained; “that’s Pulido’s. He’ll knife you if
he thinks you have five dollars in your belt, and the bar-room is half
under water anyway. Or you can take a cot in my shack, if you like, and
I’ll board and lodge you for two pesos a day--that’s one dollar in our
money. And if you are going up country,” he went on, “I can fit you out
with mules and mozos and everything you want, from canned meats to
an escort of soldiers. You’re sure to be robbed anyway,” he urged,
pleasantly, “and you might as well give the job to a fellow-countryman.
I’d hate to have one of these greasers get it.”
“You’re welcome to try,” I said, laughing.
In spite of his manner, which was much too familiar and patronizing, the
young man amused me, and I must confess moreover that at that moment I
felt very far from home and was glad to meet an American, and one not so
much older than myself. The fact that he was our consul struck me as a
most fortunate circumstance.
He clapped his hands and directed one of the negroes to carry my trunk
to the consulate, and I walked with him up the pier, the native soldiers
saluting him awkwardly as he passed. He returned their salute with a
flourish, and more to impress me I guessed than from any regard for
them.
“That’s because I’m Consul,” he said, with satisfaction. “There’s only
eight white men in Porto Cortez,” he explained, “and we’re all consular
agents. The Italian consular agent is a Frenchman, and an Italian,
Guessippi--the Banana King, they call him--is consular agent for both
Germany and England, and the only German here is consular agent for
France and Holland. You see, each of ‘em has to represent some other
country than his own, because his country knows why he left it.” He
threw back his head and laughed at this with great delight. Apparently
he had already forgotten the rebuff from Captain Leeds. But it had made
a deep impression upon me. I had heard Leeds virtually accuse the consul
of being an agent of General Laguerre, and I suspected that the articles
he had refused to deliver were more likely to be machine guns than
sewing-machines. If this were true, Mr. Aiken was a person in whom I
could confide with safety.
The consulate was a one-story building of corrugated iron, hot,
unpainted, and unlovely. It was set on wooden logs to lift it from the
reach of “sand jiggers” and the surf, which at high tide ran up the
beach, under and beyond it. Inside it was rude and bare, and the heat
and the smell of the harbor, and of the swamp on which the town was
built, passed freely through the open doors.
Aiken proceeded to play the host in a most cordial manner. He placed my
trunk in the room I was to occupy, and set out some very strong Honduran
cigars and a bottle of Jamaica rum. While he did this he began to
grumble over the loss of his sewing-machines, and to swear picturesquely
at Captain Leeds, bragging of the awful things he meant to do to him.
But when he had tasted his drink and lighted a cigar, his good-humor
returned, and he gave his attention to me.
“Now then, young one,” he asked, in a tone of the utmost familiarity,
“what’s your trouble?”
I explained that I could not help but hear what the Captain shouted
at him from the Panama, and I asked if it was contrary to the law of
Honduras for one to communicate with the officer Captain Leeds had
mentioned--General Laguerre.
“The old man, hey?” Aiken exclaimed and stared at me apparently with
increased interest. “Well, there are some people who might prevent your
getting to him,” he answered, diplomatically. For a moment he sipped his
rum and water, while he examined me from over the top of the cup. Then
he winked and smiled.
“Come now,” he said, encouragingly. “Speak up. What’s the game? You can
trust me. You’re an agent for Collins, or the Winchester Arms people,
aren’t you?”
“On the contrary,” I said, with some haughtiness, “I am serving no one’s
interest but my own. I read in the papers of General Laguerre and his
foreign legion, and I came here to join him and to fight with him.
That’s all. I am a soldier of fortune, I said.” I repeated this with
some emphasis, for I liked the sound of it. “I am a soldier of fortune,
and my name is Macklin. I hope in time to make it better known.”
“A soldier of fortune, hey?” exclaimed Aiken, observing me with a grin.
“What soldiering have you done?”
I replied, with a little embarrassment, that as yet I had seen no active
service, but that for three years I had been trained for it at West
Point.
“At West Point, the deuce you have!” said Aiken. His tone was now one
of respect, and he regarded me with marked interest. He was not a
gentleman, but he was sharp-witted enough to recognize one in me, and
my words and bearing had impressed him. Still his next remark was
disconcerting.
“But if you’re a West Point soldier,” he asked, “why the devil do you
want to mix up in a shooting-match like this?”
I was annoyed, but I answered, civilly: “It’s in a good cause,” I said.
“As I understand the situation, this President Alvarez is a tyrant. He’s
opposed to all progress. It’s a fight for liberty.”
Aiken interrupted me with a laugh, and placed his feet on the table.
“Oh, come,” he said, in a most offensive tone. “Play fair, play fair.”
“Play fair? What do you mean?” I demanded.
“You don’t expect me to believe,” he said, jeeringly, “that you came all
the way down here, just to fight for the sacred cause of liberty.”
I may occasionally exaggerate a bit in representing myself to be a more
important person than I really am, but if I were taught nothing else at
the Point, I was taught to tell the truth, and when Aiken questioned my
word I felt the honor of the whole army rising within me and stiffening
my back-bone.
“You had better believe what I tell you, sir,” I answered him, sharply.
“You may not know it, but you are impertinent!”
I have seldom seen a man so surprised as was Aiken when I made this
speech. His mouth opened and remained open while he slowly removed
his feet from the table and allowed the legs of his chair to touch the
floor.
“Great Scott,” he said at last, “but you have got a nasty temper. I’d
forgotten that folks are so particular.”
“Particular--because I object to having my word doubted,” I asked. “I
must request you to send my trunk to Pulido’s. I fancy you and I won’t
hit it off together.” I rose and started to leave the room, but he held
out his hands to prevent me, and exclaimed, in consternation:
“Oh, that’s no way to treat me,” he protested. “I didn’t say anything
for you to get on your ear about. If I did, I’m sorry.” He stepped
forward, offering to shake my hand, and as I took his doubtfully, he
pushed me back into my chair.
“You mustn’t mind me,” he went on. “It’s been so long since I’ve seen a
man from God’s country that I’ve forgotten how to do the polite. Here,
have another drink and start even.” He was so eager and so suddenly
humble that I felt ashamed of my display of offended honor, and we began
again with a better understanding.
I told him once more why I had come, and this time he accepted my story
as though he considered my wishing to join Laguerre the most natural
thing in the world, nodding his head and muttering approvingly. When I
had finished he said, “You may not think so now, but I guess you’ve come
to the only person who can help you. If you’d gone to anyone else you’d
probably have landed in jail.” He glanced over his shoulder at the open
door, and then, after a mysterious wink at me, tiptoed out upon the
veranda, and ran rapidly around and through the house. This precaution
on his part gave me a thrill of satisfaction. I felt that at last I
was a real conspirator that I was concerned in something dangerous and
weighty. I sipped at my glass with an air of indifference, but as a
matter of fact I was rather nervous.
“You can’t be too careful,” Aiken said as he reseated himself. “Of
course, the whole thing is a comic opera, but if they suspect you
are working against them, they’re just as likely as not to make it a
tragedy, with you in the star part. Now I’ll explain how I got into
this, and I can assure you it wasn’t through any love of liberty with
me. The consular agent here is a man named Quay, and he and I have
been in the commission business together. About three months ago, when
Laguerre was organizing his command at Bluefields, Garcia, who is the
leader of the revolutionary party, sent word down here to Quay to go
North for him and buy two machine guns and invoice ‘em to me at the
consulate. Quay left on the next steamer and appointed me acting consul,
but except for his saying so I’ve no more real authority to act as
consul than you have. The plan was that when Laguerre captured this port
he would pick up the guns and carry them on to Garcia. Laguerre was at
Bluefields, but couldn’t get into the game for lack of a boat. So when
the Nancy Miller touched there he and his crowd boarded her just like a
lot of old-fashioned pirates and turned the passengers out on the wharf.
Then they put a gun at the head of the engineer and ordered him to take
them back to Porto Cortez. But when they reached here the guns hadn’t
arrived from New Orleans. And so, after a bit of a fight on landing,
Laguerre pushed on without them to join Garcia. He left instructions
with me to bring him word when they arrived. He’s in hiding up there in
the mountains, waiting to hear from me now. They ought to have come this
steamer day on the Panama along with you, but, as you know, they didn’t.
I never thought they would. I knew the Isthmian Line people wouldn’t
carry ‘em. They’ve got to beat Garcia, and until this row is over they
won’t even carry a mail-bag for fear he might capture it.”
“Is that because General Laguerre seized one of their steamers?” I
asked.
“No, it’s an old fight,” said Aiken, “and Laguerre’s stealing the Nancy
Miller was only a part of it. The fight began between Garcia and the
Isthmian Line when Garcia became president. He tried to collect some
money from the Isthmian Line, and old man Fiske threw him out of the
palace and made Alvarez president.”
I was beginning to find the politics of the revolution into which I had
precipitated myself somewhat involved, and I suppose I looked puzzled,
for Aiken laughed.
“You can laugh,” I said, “but it is rather confusing. Who is Fiske? Is
he another revolutionist?”
“Fiske!” exclaimed Aiken. “Don’t tell me you don’t know who Fiske is?
I mean old man Fiske, the Wall Street banker--Joseph Fiske, the one who
owns the steam yacht and all the railroads.”
I had of course heard of that Joseph Fiske, but his name to me was only
a word meaning money. I had never thought of Joseph Fiske as a human
being. At school and at the Point when we wanted to give the idea of
wealth that could not be counted we used to say, “As rich as Joe Fiske.”
But I answered, in a tone that suggested that I knew him intimately:
“Oh, that Fiske,” I said. “But what has he to do with Honduras?”
“He owns it,” Aiken answered. “It’s like this,” he began. “You must
understand that almost every republic in Central America is under
the thumb of a big trading firm or a banking house or a railroad. For
instance, all these revolutions you read about in the papers--it’s
seldom they start with the people. The _puebleo_ don’t often elect
a president or turn one out. That’s generally the work of a New York
business firm that wants a concession. If the president in office won’t
give it a concession the company starts out to find one who will. It
hunts up a rival politician or a general of the army who wants to be
president, and all of them do, and makes a deal with him. It promises
him if he’ll start a revolution it will back him with the money and the
guns. Of course, the understanding is that if the leader of the fake
revolution gets in he’ll give his New York backers whatever they’re
after. Sometimes they want a concession for a railroad, and sometimes
it’s a nitrate bed or a rubber forest, but you can take my word for
it that there’s very few revolutions down here that haven’t got a
money-making scheme at the bottom of them.
“Now this present revolution was started by the Isthmian Steamship Line,
of which Joe Fiske is president. It runs its steamers from New Orleans
to the Isthmus of Panama. In its original charter this republic gave it
the monopoly of the fruit-carrying trade from all Hondurian ports. In
return for this the company agreed to pay the government $10,000 a year
and ten per cent, on its annual receipts, if the receipts ever exceeded
a certain amount. Well, curiously enough, although the line has been
able to build seven new steamers, its receipts have never exceeded that
fixed amount. And if you know these people the reason for that is very
simple. The company has always given each succeeding president a lump
sum for himself, on the condition that he won’t ask any impertinent
questions about the company’s earnings. Its people tell him that it is
running at a loss, and he always takes their word for it. But Garcia,
when he came in, either was too honest, or they didn’t pay him enough to
keep quiet. I don’t know which it was, but, anyway, he sent an agent
to New Orleans to examine the company’s books. The agent discovered the
earnings have been so enormous that by rights the Isthmian Line owed the
government of Honduras $500,000. This was a great chance for Garcia, and
he told them to put up the back pay or lose their charter. They refused
and he got back at them by preventing their ships from taking on any
cargo in Honduras, and by seizing their plant here and at Truxillo.
Well, the company didn’t dare to go to law about it, nor appeal to the
State Department, so it started a revolution. It picked out a thief
named Alvarez as a figure-head and helped him to bribe the army and
capture the capital. Then he bought a decision from the local courts in
favor of the company. After that there was no more talk about collecting
back pay. Garcia was an exile in Nicaragua. There he met Laguerre, who
is a professional soldier of fortune, and together they cooked up this
present revolution. They hope to put Garcia back into power again. How
he’ll act if he gets in I don’t know. The common people believe he’s a
patriot, that he’ll keep all the promises he makes them--and he makes a
good many--and some white people believe in him, too. Laguerre believes
in him, for instance. Laguerre told me that Garcia was a second Bolivar
and Washington. But he might be both of them, and he couldn’t beat the
Isthmian Line. You see, while he has prevented the Isthmian Line from
carrying bananas, he’s cut off his own nose by shutting off his only
source of supply. For these big corporations hang together at times,
and on the Pacific side the Pacific Mail Company has got the word from
Fiske, and they won’t carry supplies, either. That’s what I meant by
saying that Joe Fiske owns Honduras. He’s cut it off from the world, and
only _his_ arms and _his_ friends can get into it. And the joke of it is
he can’t get out.”
“Can’t get out?” I exclaimed. “What do you mean?”
“Why, he’s up there at Tegucigalpa himself,” said Aiken. “Didn’t you
know that? He’s up at the capital, visiting Alvarez. He came in through
this port about two weeks ago.”
“Joseph Fiske is fighting in a Hondurian revolution?” I exclaimed.
“Certainly not!” cried Aiken. “He’s here on a pleasure trip; partly
pleasure, partly business. He came here on his yacht. You can see her
from the window, lying to the left of the buoy. Fiske has nothing to do
with this row. I don’t suppose he knows there’s a revolution going on.”
I resented this pretended lack of interest on the part of the Wall
Street banker. I condemned it as a piece of absurd affectation.
“Don’t you believe it!” I said. “No matter how many millions a man has,
he doesn’t stand to lose $500,000 without taking an interest in it.”
“Oh, but he doesn’t know about _that_,” said Aiken. “He doesn’t know
the ins and outs of the story--what I’ve been telling you. That’s on the
inside--that’s cafe scandal. That side of it would never reach him. I
suppose Joe Fiske is president of a _dozen_ steamship lines, and all he
does is to lend his name to this one, and preside at board meetings. The
company’s lawyers tell him whatever they think he ought to know. They
probably say they’re having trouble down here owing to one of the local
revolutions, and that Garcia is trying to blackmail them.”
“Then you don’t think Fiske came down here about this?” I asked.
“About this?” repeated Aiken, in a tone of such contempt that I disliked
him intensely. For the last half hour Aiken had been jumping unfeelingly
on all my ideals and illusions.
“No,” he went on. “He came here on his yacht on a pleasure trip around
the West India Islands, and he rode in from here to look over the Copan
Silver Mines. Alvarez is terribly keen to get rid of him. He’s afraid
the revolutionists will catch him and hold him for ransom. He’d bring a
good price,” Aiken added, reflectively. “It’s enough to make a man turn
brigand. And his daughter, too. She’d bring a good price.”
“His daughter!” I exclaimed.
Aiken squeezed the tips of his fingers together, and kissed them,
tossing the imaginary kiss up toward the roof. Then he drank what was
left of his rum and water at a gulp and lifted the empty glass high in
the air. “To the daughter,” he said.
It was no concern of mine, but I resented his actions exceedingly. I
think I was annoyed that he should have seen the young lady while I had
not. I also resented his toasting her before a stranger. I knew he could
not have met her, and his pretence of enthusiasm made him appear quite
ridiculous. He looked at me mournfully, shaking his head as though it
were impossible for him to give me an idea of her.
“Why they say,” he exclaimed, “that when she rides along the trail, the
native women kneel beside it.
“She’s the best looking girl I ever saw,” he declared, “and she’s a
thoroughbred too!” he added, “or she wouldn’t have stuck it out in this
country when she had a clean yacht to fall back on. She’s been riding
around on a mule, so they tell me, along with her father and the
engineering experts, and just as though she enjoyed it. The men up at
the mines say she tired them all out.”
I had no desire to discuss the young lady with Aiken, so I pretended not
to be interested, and he ceased speaking, and we smoked in silence. But
my mind was nevertheless wide awake to what he had told me. I could not
help but see the dramatic values which had been given to the situation
by the presence of this young lady. The possibilities were tremendous.
Here was I, fighting against her father, and here was she, beautiful and
an heiress to many millions. In the short space of a few seconds I had
pictured myself rescuing her from brigands, denouncing her father
for not paying his honest debt to Honduras, had been shot down by his
escort, Miss Fiske had bandaged my wounds, and I was returning North as
her prospective husband on my prospective father-in-law’s yacht.
Aiken aroused me from this by rising to his feet. “Now then,” he said,
briskly, “if you want to go to Laguerre you can come with me. I’ve got
to see him to explain why his guns haven’t arrived, and I’ll take you
with me.” He made a wry face and laughed. “A nice welcome he’ll give
me,” he said. I jumped to my feet. “There’s my trunk,” I said; “it’s
ready, and so am I. When do we start?”
“As soon as it is moonlight,” Aiken answered.
The remainder of the day was spent in preparing for our journey. I was
first taken to the commandante and presented to him as a commercial
traveller. Aiken asked him for a passport permitting me to proceed to
the capital “for purposes of trade.” As consular agent Aiken needed no
passport for himself, but to avoid suspicion he informed the commandante
that his object in visiting Tegucigalpa was to persuade Joseph Fiske,
as president of the Isthmian Line, to place buoys in the harbor of Porto
Cortez and give the commission for their purchase to the commandante.
Aiken then and always was the most graceful liar I have ever met. His
fictions were never for his own advantage, at least not obviously so.
Instead, they always held out some pleasing hope for the person to whom
they were addressed. His plans and promises as to what he would do were
so alluring that even when I knew he was lying I liked to pretend that
he was not. This particular fiction so interested the commandante that
he even offered us an escort of soldiers, which honor we naturally
declined.
That night when the moon had risen we started inland, each mounted on a
stout little mule, and followed by a third, on which was swung my trunk,
balanced on the other side by Aiken’s saddle bags. A Carib Indian whom
Aiken had selected because of his sympathies for the revolution walked
beside the third mule and directed its progress by the most startling
shrieks and howls. To me it was a most memorable and marvellous night,
and although for the greater part of it Aiken dozed in his saddle and
woke only to abuse his mule, I was never more wakeful nor more happy. At
the very setting forth I was pleasantly stirred when at the limit of the
town a squad of soldiers halted us and demanded our passports. This was
my first encounter with the government troops. They were barefooted
and most slovenly looking soldiers, mere boys in age and armed with
old-fashioned Remingtons. But their officer, the captain of the guard,
was more smartly dressed, and I was delighted to find that my knowledge
of Spanish, in which my grandfather had so persistently drilled me,
enabled me to understand all that passed between him and Aiken. The
captain warned us that the revolutionists were camped along the
trail, and that if challenged we had best answer quickly that we were
Americanos. He also told us that General Laguerre and his legion of
“gringoes” were in hiding in the highlands some two days’ ride from the
coast. Aiken expressed the greatest concern at this, and was for at
once turning back. His agitation was so convincing, he was apparently
so frightened, that, until he threw a quick wink at me, I confess I was
completely taken in. For some time he refused to be calmed, and it
was only when the captain assured him that his official position would
protect him from any personal danger that he consented to ride on.
Before we crossed the town limits he had made it quite evident that
the officer himself was solely responsible for his continuing on
his journey, and he denounced Laguerre and all his works with a
picturesqueness of language and a sincerity that filled me with
confusion. I even began to doubt if after all Aiken was not playing a
game for both sides, and might not end my career by leading me into
a trap. After we rode on I considered the possibility of this quite
seriously, and I was not reassured until I heard the _mozo_, with many
chuckles and shrugs of the shoulder, congratulate Aiken on the way he
had made a fool of the captain.
“That’s called diplomacy, Jose,” Aiken told him. “That’s my statecraft.
It’s because I have so much statecraft that I am a consul. You keep
your eye on this American consul, Jose, and you’ll learn a lot of
statecraft.”
Jose showed his teeth and grinned, and after he had dropped into a line
behind us we could hear him still chuckling.
“You would be a great success in secret service work, Aiken,” I said,
“or on the stage.”
We were riding in single file, and in order to see my face in the
moonlight he had to turn in his saddle.
“And yet I didn’t,” he laughed.
“What do you mean,” I asked, “were you ever a spy or an actor?”
“I was both,” he said. “I was a failure at both, too. I got put in jail
for being a spy, and I ought to have been hung for my acting.” I kicked
my mule forward in order to hear better.
“Tell me about it,” I asked, eagerly. “About when you were a spy.”
But Aiken only laughed, and rode on without turning his head.
“You wouldn’t understand,” he said after a pause. Then he looked at me
over his shoulder. “It needs a big black background of experience and
hard luck to get the perspective on that story,” he explained. “It
wouldn’t appeal to you; you’re too young. They’re some things they don’t
teach at West Point.”
“They teach us,” I answered, hotly, “that if we’re detailed to secret
service work we are to carry out our orders. It’s not dishonorable to
obey orders. I’m not so young as you think. Go on, tell me, in what war
were you a spy?”
“It wasn’t in any war,” Aiken said, again turning away from me. “It was
in Haskell’s Private Detective Agency.”
I could not prevent an exclamation, but the instant it had escaped me
I could have kicked myself for having made it. “I beg your pardon,” I
murmured, awkwardly.
“I said you wouldn’t understand,” Aiken answered. Then, to show he did
not wish to speak with me further, he spurred his mule into a trot and
kept a distance between us.
Our trail ran over soft, spongy ground and was shut in on either hand
by a wet jungle of tangled vines and creepers. They interlaced like the
strands of a hammock, choking and strangling and clinging to each other
in a great web. From the jungle we came to ill-smelling pools of mud and
water, over which hung a white mist which rose as high as our heads.
It was so heavy with moisture that our clothing dripped with it, and
we were chilled until our teeth chattered. But by five o’clock in the
morning we had escaped the coast swamps, and reached higher ground and
the village of Sagua la Grande, and the sun was drying our clothes and
taking the stiffness out of our bones.