Although I had reached my journey’s end, although I had accomplished
what I had set out to do, I felt no sense of elation nor relief. I
was, instead, disenchanted, discouraged, bitterly depressed. It was
so unutterably and miserably unlike what I had hoped to find, what I
believed I had the right to expect, that my disappointment and anger
choked me. The picture I had carried in my mind was one of shining
tent-walls, soldierly men in gay and gaudy uniforms, fluttering guidons,
blue ammunition-boxes in orderly array, smart sentries pacing their
posts, and a head-quarters tent where busy officers bent over maps and
reports.
The scene I had set was one painted in martial colors, in scarlet
and gold lace; it moved to martial music, to bugle-calls, to words of
command, to the ringing challenge of the sentry, and what I had found
was this camp of gypsies, this nest of tramps, without authority,
discipline, or self-respect. It was not even picturesque. My indignation
stirred me so intensely that, as I walked down the hill, I prayed for a
rude reception, that I might try to express my disgust.
The officer who had first approached us stopped at the opening of the
solitary tent, and began talking excitedly to someone inside. And as we
reached the level ground, the occupant of the tent stepped from it. He
was a stout, heavy man, with a long, twisted mustache, at which he was
tugging fiercely. He wore a red sash and a bandman’s tunic, with two
stars sewn on the collar. I could not make out his rank, but his first
words explained him.
“I am glad to see you at last, Mr. Aiken,” he said. “I’m Major Reeder,
in temporary command. You have come to report, sir?”
Aiken took so long to reply that I stopped studying the remarkable
costume of the Major and turned to Aiken. I was surprised to see that he
was unquestionably frightened. His eyes were shifting and blinking, and
he wet his lips with his tongue. All his self-assurance had deserted
him. The officer who had led us to the camp was also aware of Aiken’s
uneasiness, and was regarding him with a sneer. For some reason the
spectacle of Aiken’s distress seemed to afford him satisfaction.
“I should prefer to report to General Laguerre,” Aiken said, at last.
“I am in command here,” Reeder answered, sharply. “General Laguerre is
absent--reconnoitering. I represent him. I know all about Mr. Quay’s
mission. It was I who recommended him to the General. Where are the
guns?”
For a moment Aiken stared at him helplessly, and then drew in a quick
breath.
“I don’t know where they are,” he said. “The Panama arrived two days
ago, but when I went to unload the guns Captain Leeds told me they had
been seized in New Orleans by the Treasury Department. Someone must
have--”
Both Major Reeder and the officer interrupted with a shout of anger.
“Then it’s true!” Reeder cried. “It’s true, and--and--you dare to tell
us so!”
Aiken raised his head and for a moment looked almost defiant.
“Why shouldn’t I tell you?” he demanded, indignantly. “Who else was
there to tell you? I’ve travelled two days to let you know. I can’t help
it if the news isn’t good. I’m just as sorry as you are.”
The other officer was a stout, yellow-haired German. He advanced a step
and shook a soiled finger in Aiken’s face. “You can’t help it, can’t
you?” he cried. “You’re sorry, are you? You won’t be sorry when you’re
paid your money, will you? How much did you get for us, hey! How much
did Joe Fiske--”
Reeder threw out his arm and motioned the officer back. “Silence,
Captain Heinze,” he commanded.
The men of the Legion who had happened to be standing near the tent when
we appeared had come up to look at the new arrivals, and when they heard
two of their officers attacking Aiken they crowded still closer in
front of us, forming a big half-circle. Each of them apparently was on a
footing with his officers of perfect comradeship, and listened openly to
what was going forward as though it were a personal concern of his own.
They had even begun to discuss it among themselves, and made so much
noise in doing so that Captain Heinze passed on Reeder’s rebuke as
though it had been intended for them, commanding, “Silence in the
ranks.”
They were not in ranks, and should not have been allowed where they
were in any formation, but that did not seem to occur to either of the
officers.
“Silence,” Reeder repeated. “Now, Mr. Aiken, I am waiting. What have you
to say?”
“What is there for me to say?” Aiken protested. “I have done all I
could. I told you as soon as I could get here.” Major Reeder drew close
to Aiken and pointed his outstretched hand at him.
“Mr. Aiken,” he said. “Only four people knew that those guns were
ordered--Quay, who went to fetch them, General Laguerre, myself, and
you. Some one of us must have sold out the others; no one else could
have done it. It was not Quay. The General and I have been here in the
mountains--we did not do it; and that--that leaves you.”
“It does not leave me,” Aiken cried. He shouted it out with such spirit
that I wondered at him. It was the same sort of spirit which makes a rat
fight because he can’t get away, but I didn’t think so then.
“It was Quay sold you out!” Aiken cried. “Quay told the Isthmian people
as soon as the guns reached New Orleans. I suspected him when he cabled
me he wasn’t coming back. I know him. I know just what he is. He’s been
on both sides before.”
“Silence, you--you,” Reeder interrupted. He was white with anger. “Mr.
Quay is my friend,” he cried. “I trust him. I trust him as I would trust
my own brother. How dare you accuse him!”
He ceased and stood gasping with indignation, but his show of anger
encouraged Captain Heinze to make a fresh attack on Aiken.
“Quay took you off the beach,” he shouted.
“He gave you food and clothes, and a bed to lie on. It’s like you, to
bite the hand that fed you. When have you ever stuck to any side or
anybody if you could get a dollar more by selling him out?”
The whole thing had become intolerable. It was abject and degrading,
like a falling-out among thieves. They reminded me of a group of drunken
women I had once seen, shameless and foul-mouthed, fighting in the
street, with grinning night-birds urging them on. I felt in some way
horribly responsible, as though they had dragged me into it--as though
the flying handfuls of mud had splattered me. And yet the thing which
inflamed me the most against them was their unfairness to Aiken. They
would not let him speak, and they would not see that they were so many,
and that he was alone. I did not then know that he was telling the
truth. Indeed, I thought otherwise. I did not then know that on those
occasions when he appeared to the worst advantage, he generally was
trying to tell the truth.
Captain Heinze pushed nearer, and shoved his fist close to Aiken’s face.
“We know what you are,” he jeered. “We know you’re no more on our side
than you’re the American Consul. You lied to us about that, and you’ve
lied to us about everything else. And now we’ve caught you, and we’ll
make you pay for it.”
One of the men in the rear of the crowd shouted, “Ah, shoot the beggar!”
and others began to push forward and to jeer. Aiken heard them and
turned quite white.
“You’ve caught me?” Aiken stammered. “Why, I came here of my own will.
Is it likely I’d have done that if I had sold you out?”
“I tell you you did sell us out,” Heinze roared. “And you’re a coward
besides, and I tell you so to your face!” He sprang at Aiken, and Aiken
shrank back. It made me sick to see him do it. I had such a contempt for
the men against him that I hated his not standing up to them. It was to
hide the fact that he had stepped back, that I jumped in front of him
and pretended to restrain him. I tried to make it look as though had I
not interfered, he would have struck at Heinze.
The German had swung around toward the men behind him, as though he were
subpoenaing them as witnesses.
“I call him a coward to his face!” he shouted. But when he turned again
I was standing in front of Aiken, and he halted in surprise, glaring at
me. I don’t know what made me do it, except that I had heard enough of
their recriminations, and was sick with disappointment. I hated Heinze
and all of them, and myself for being there.
“Yes, you can call him a coward,” I said, as offensively as I could,
“with fifty men behind you. How big a crowd do you want before you
dare insult a man?” Then I turned on the others. “Aren’t you ashamed of
yourselves,” I cried, “to all of you set on one man in your own camp? I
don’t know anything about this row and I don’t want to know, but there’s
fifty men here against one, and I’m on the side of that one. You’re
a lot of cheap bullies,” I cried, “and this German drill-sergeant,”
I shouted, pointing at Heinze, “who calls himself an officer, is the
cheapest bully of the lot.” I jerked open the buckle which held my belt
and revolver, and flung them on the ground. Then I slipped off my coat,
and shoved it back of me to Aiken, for I wanted to keep him out of it.
It was the luck of Royal Macklin himself that led me to take off my coat
instead of drawing my revolver. At the Point I had been accustomed to
settle things with my fists, and it had been only since I started from
the coast that I had carried a gun. A year later, in the same situation,
I would have reached for it. Had I done so that morning, as a dozen of
them assured me later, they would have shot me before I could have got
my hand on it. But, as it was, when I rolled up my sleeves the men began
to laugh, and some shouted: “Give him room,” “Make a ring,” “Fair play,
now,” “Make a ring.” The semi-circle spread out and lengthened until it
formed a ring, with Heinze and Reeder, and Aiken holding my coat, and
myself in the centre of it.
I squared off in front of the German and tapped him lightly on the chest
with the back of my hand.
“Now, then,” I cried, taunting him, “I call _you_ a coward to _your_
face. What are you going to do about it?”
For an instant he seemed too enraged and astonished to move, and the
next he exploded with a wonderful German oath and rushed at me, tugging
at his sword. At the same moment the men gave a shout and the ring
broke. I thought they had cried out in protest when they saw Heinze put
his hand on his sword, but as they scattered and fell back I saw that
they were looking neither at Heinze nor at me, but at someone behind me.
Heinze, too, halted as suddenly as though he had been pulled back by a
curbed bit, and, bringing his heels together, stood stiffly at salute.
I turned and saw that everyone was falling out of the way of a tall
man who came striding toward us, and I knew on the instant that he
was General Laguerre. At the first glance I disassociated him from
his followers. He was entirely apart. In any surroundings I would have
picked him out as a leader of men. Even a civilian would have known
he was a soldier, for the signs of his calling were stamped on him
as plainly as the sterling mark on silver, and although he was not in
uniform his carriage and countenance told you that he was a personage.
He was very tall and gaunt, with broad shoulders and a waist as small as
a girl’s, and although he must then have been about fifty years of age
he stood as stiffly erect as though his spine had grown up into the back
of his head.
At the first glance he reminded me of Van Dyke’s portrait of Charles I.
He had the same high-bred features, the same wistful eyes, and hewore
his beard and mustache in what was called the Van Dyke fashion, before
Louis Napoleon gave it a new vogue as the “imperial.”
It must have been that I read the wistful look in his eyes later, for
at the moment of our first meeting it was a very stern Charles I. who
confronted us, with the delicate features stiffened in anger, and the
eyes set and burning. Since then I have seen both the wistful look and
the angry look many times, and even now I would rather face the muzzle
of a gun than the eyes of General Laguerre when you have offended him.
His first words were addressed to Reeder.
“What does this mean, sir?” he demanded. “If you cannot keep order in
this camp when my back is turned I shall find an officer who can. Who is
this?” he added, pointing at me. I became suddenly conscious of the fact
that I was without my hat or coat, and that my sleeves were pulled up to
the shoulders. Aiken was just behind me, and as I turned to him for my
coat I disclosed his presence to the General. He gave an exclamation of
delight.
“Mr. Aiken!” he cried, “at last!” He lowered his voice to an eager
whisper. “Where are the guns?” he asked.
Apparently Aiken felt more confidence in General Laguerre than in his
officers, for at this second questioning he answered promptly.
“I regret to say, sir,” he began, “that the guns were seized at New
Orleans. Someone informed the Honduranian Consul there, and he--”
“Seized!” cried Laguerre. “By whom? Do you mean we have lost them?”
Aiken lowered his eyes and nodded.
“But how do you know?” Laguerre demanded, eagerly. “You are not sure?
Who seized them?”
“The Treasury officers,” Aiken answered
“The captain of the Panama told me he saw the guns taken on the
company’s wharf.”
For some moments Laguerre regarded him sternly, but I do not think he
saw him. He turned and walked a few steps from us and back again.
Then he gave an upward toss of his head as though he had accepted his
sentence. “The fortunes of war,” he kept repeating to himself, “the
fortunes of war.” He looked up and saw us regarding him with expressions
of the deepest concern.
“I thought I had had my share of them,” he said, simply. He straightened
his shoulders and frowned, and then looked at us and tried to smile. But
the bad news had cut deeply. During the few minutes since he had come
pushing his way through the crowd, he seemed to have grown ten years
older. He walked to the door of his tent and then halted and turned
toward Reeder.
“I think my fever is coming on again,” he said. “I believe I had better
rest. Do not let them disturb me.”
“Yes, General,” Reeder answered. Then he pointed at Aiken and myself.
“And what are we to do with these?” he asked.
“Do with these?” Laguerre repeated. “Why, what did you mean to do with
them?”
Reeder swelled out his chest importantly, “If you had not arrived when
you did, General,” he said, “I would have had them shot!”
The General stopped at the entrance to the tent and leaned heavily
against the pole. He raised his eyes and looked at us wearily and with
no show of interest.
“Shoot them?” he asked. “Why were you going to shoot them?”
“Because, General,” Reeder declared, theatrically, pointing an accusing
finger at Aiken, “I believe this man sold our secret to the Isthmian
Line. No one knew of the guns but our three selves and Quay. And Quay
is not a man to betray his friends. I wish I could say as much for Mr.
Aiken.”
At that moment Aiken, being quite innocent, said even less for himself,
and because he was innocent looked the trapped and convicted criminal.
Laguerre’s eyes glowed like two branding-irons. As he fixed them on
Aiken’s face one expected to see them leave a mark.
“If the General will only listen,” Aiken stammered. “If you will only
give me a hearing, sir. Why should I come to your camp if I had sold you
out? Why didn’t I get away on the first steamer, and stay away--as Quay
did?”
The General gave an exclamation of disgust, and shrugged his shoulders.
He sank back slowly against one of the Gatling guns.
“What does it matter?” he said, bitterly. “Why lock the stable door now?
I will give you a hearing,” he said, turning to Aiken, “but it would
be better for you if I listened to you later. Bring him to me to-morrow
morning after roll-call. And the other?” he asked. He pointed at me, but
his eyes, which were heavy with disappointment, were staring moodily at
the ground.
Heinze interposed himself quickly.
“Aiken brought him here!” he said. “I believe he’s an agent of the
Isthmian people, or,” he urged, “why did he come here? He came to spy
out your camp, General, and to report on our condition.”
“A spy!” said Laguerre, raising his head and regarding me sharply.
“Yes,” Heinze declared, with conviction. “A spy, General. A Government
spy, and he has found out our hiding-place and counted our men.”
Aiken turned on him with a snarl.
“Oh, you ass!” he cried. “He came as a volunteer. He wanted to fight
with you,--for the sacred cause of liberty!”
“Yes, he wanted to fight with us,” shouted Heinze, indignantly. “As soon
as he got into the camp, he wanted to fight with us.”
Laguerre made an exclamation of impatience, and rose unsteadily from the
gun-carriage.
“Silence!” he commanded. “I tell you I cannot listen to you now. I will
give these men a hearing after roll-call. In the meantime if they are
spies, they have seen too much. Place them under guard; and if they try
to escape, shoot them.”