IV

I jumped toward the street at the double, and the men followed me

crowded in a bunch. I shouted back at them to spread out, and they fell

apart. As I turned into the street I heard a shout from the plaza end of

it and found a dozen soldiers running forward to meet us. When they saw

the troops swing around the corner, they halted and some took cover in

the doorways, and others dropped on one knee in the open street, and

fired carefully. I heard soft, whispering sounds stealing by my head

with incredible slowness, and I knew that at last I was under fire. I no

longer felt like a boy robbing an orchard, nor a burglar. I was instead

grandly excited and happy, and yet I was quite calm too. I am sure

of this, for I remember I calculated the distance between us and the

warehouse, and compared it with the two hundred and twenty-yard stretch

in an athletic park at home. As I ran I noted also everything on either

side of me: two girls standing behind the iron bars of a window with

their hands pressed to their cheeks, and a negro with a broom in his

hand crouching in a doorway. Some of the men stopped running and halted

to fire, but I shouted to them to come on. I was sure if we continued

to charge we could frighten off the men at the end of the street, and I

guessed rightly, for as we kept on they scattered and ran. I could hear

shouts and screams rising from many different houses, and men and women

scuttled from one side of the street to the other like frightened hens.

As we passed an open shop some men inside opened a fusillade on me, and

over my shoulder I just caught a glimpse of one of them as he dropped

back behind the counter. I shouted to Von Ritter, who was racing with

me, to look after them, and saw him and a half-dozen others swerve

suddenly and sweep into the shop. Porter’s men were just behind mine

and the noise our boots made pounding on the cobblestones sounded like a

stampede of cattle.

The plaza was an unshaded square of dusty grass. In the centre was a

circular fountain, choked with dirt and dead leaves, and down the paths

which led to it were solid stone benches. I told the men to take cover

inside the fountain, and about a dozen of them dropped behind the rim of

it, facing toward the barracks. I heard Porter give a loud “hurrah!” at

finding the doors of the warehouse open, and it seemed almost instantly

that the men of his troop began to fire over our heads from its roof.

At the first glance it was difficult to tell from where the enemy’s fire

came, but I soon saw smoke floating from the cupola of the church on

the corner and drifting through the barred windows of the barracks. I

shouted at the men behind the benches to aim at the cupola, and directed

those with me around the fountain to let loose at the barrack windows.

As they rose to fire and exposed themselves above the rim of the

fountain three of them were hit, and fell back swearing. The men behind

the benches shouted at me to take cover, and one of the wounded men in

the fountain reached up and pulled at my tunic, telling me to lie down.

The men of B and C Troops were rolling casks out of the warehouse and

building a barricade, and I saw that we were drawing all of the fire

from them. We were now in a cross-fire between the church and the

barracks, and were getting very much the worst of the fight. The men in

the barracks were only seventy yards away. They seemed to be the ones

chiefly responsible. They had piled canvas cots against the bars of the

windows, and though these afforded them no protection, they prevented

our seeing anything at which to shoot.

One of my men gave a grunt, and whirled over, holding his hand to his

shoulder. “I’ve got it, Captain,” he said. I heard another man shriek

from behind one of the benches. Our position was becoming impossible. It

was true we were drawing the fire from the men who were working on

the barricade, which was what we had been sent out to do, but in three

minutes I had lost five men.

I remembered a professor at the Point telling us the proportion of

bullets that went home was one to every three hundred, and I wished I

had him behind that fountain. Miller was lying at my feet pumping

away with a Winchester. As he was reloading it he looked up at me, and

shouted, “And they say these Central Americans can’t shoot!” I saw white

figures appearing and disappearing at the windows of almost every house

on the plaza. The entire population seemed to have taken up arms against

us. The bullets splashed on the combing of the fountain and tore up the

grass at our feet, and whistled and whispered about our ears. It seemed

utter idiocy to remain, but I could not bring myself to run back to the

barricade.

In the confusion which had ensued in the barracks when Garcia opened the

attack the men who ran out to meet him had left the gates of the barrack

yard open, and as I stood, uncertain what to do, I saw a soldier pushing

them together. He had just closed one when I caught sight of him. I

fired with my revolver, and shouted to the men. “We must get inside

those gates,” I cried. “We can’t stay here. Charge those gates!” I

pointed, and they all jumped from every part of the plaza, and we raced

for the barrack wall, each of us yelling as we ran. A half dozen of us

reached there in time to throw ourselves against the gate that was just

closing, and the next instant I fell sprawling inside the barrack yard.

{Illustration: And the next instant I fell sprawling inside the barrack

yard}

We ran straight for the long room which faced the street, and as we came

in at one end of it the men behind the cots fired a frightened volley at

us and fled out at the other. In less than two minutes the barracks were

empty, and we had changed our base from that cock-pit of a fountain to a

regular fortress with walls two feet thick, with rifles stacked in every

corner, and, what at that moment seemed of greatest importance, with a

breakfast for two hundred men bubbling and boiling in great iron pots in

the kitchen. I had never felt such elation and relief as I did over that

bloodless victory. It had come when things looked so bad; it had come

so suddenly and easily that while some of the men cheered, others only

laughed, shaking each other’s hands or slapping each other on the back,

and some danced about like children. We tore the cots away from the

windows and waved at the men behind the barricade, and they stood up and

cheered us, and the men on the roof, looking very tall against the blue

sky, stood up and waved their hats and cheered too. They had silenced

the men in the cupola, and a sudden hush fell upon the plaza. It was

easy to see that many sympathizers with the government had been shooting

at us from the private houses. When they saw us take the barracks

they had probably decided that the time had come to wipe off the

powder-stains, and reappear as friends of the revolution. The only

firing now was from where Garcia was engaged. Judging from the loudness

of these volleys he had reached the outskirts of the town. I set half

of my force to work piling up bags of meal behind the iron bars, and,

in the event of fire, filling pails with water, and breaking what little

glass still remained in the windows. Others I sent to bring in the

wounded, and still others to serving out the coffee and soup we had

found in the kitchen. After giving these orders I ran to the barricade

to report. When I reached it the men behind it began to rap on the

stones with the butts of their rifles as people pound with their

billiard-cues when someone has made a difficult shot, and those on the

roof leaned over and clapped their hands. It was most unmilitary, but

I must say I was pleased by it, though I pretended I did not know what

they meant.

Laguerre came to the door of the warehouse, and smiled at me.

“I’m glad you’re still alive, sir,” he said. “After this, when you get

within seventy yards of the enemy, I hope you will be able to see him

without standing up.”

The men above us laughed, and I felt rather foolish, and muttered

something about “setting an example.”

“If you get yourself shot,” he said, “you will be setting a very bad

example, indeed. We can’t spare anybody, Captain, and certainly not

you.” I tried to look as modest as possible, but I could not refrain

from glancing around to see if the men had heard him, and I observed

with satisfaction that they had.

Laguerre asked me if I could hold the barracks, and I told him that I

thought I could. He then ordered me to remain there.

“Would you like a cup of coffee, General?” I asked. The General’s

expression changed swiftly. It became that of a very human and a very

hungry man.

“Have you got any?” he demanded anxiously.

“If you can lend me some men,” I said, “I can send you back eight

gallons.” At this the men behind the barricades gave a great cheer of

delight, and the General smiled and patted me on the shoulder.

“That is right,” he said. “The best kind of courage often comes from a

full stomach. Run along now,” he added, as though he were talking to a

child, “run along, and don’t fire until we do, and send us that coffee

before we get to work again.”

I called in all of my men from the side streets, and led them across

to the barracks. I placed some of them on the roof and some of them on

tables set against the inside of the wall in the yard.

As I did so, I saw Porter run across the plaza with about fifty of

his men, and almost immediately after they had disappeared we heard

cheering, and he returned with Captain Heinze. They both ran toward

General Laguerre, and Porter then came across to me, and told me that

the government troops were in full flight, and escaping down the side

streets into the jungle. They were panic-stricken and were scattering in

every direction, each man looking after his own safety. For the next two

hours I chased terrified little soldiers all over the side of the

town which had been assigned me, either losing them at the edge of the

jungle, or dragging them out of shops and private houses. No one was

hurt. It was only necessary to fire a shot after them to see them throw

up their hands. By nine o’clock I had cleaned up my side of the town,

and returned to the plaza. It was now so choked with men and mules that

I was five minutes in forcing my way across. Garcia’s troops had marched

in, and were raising a great hullabaloo, cheering and shouting, and

embracing the townspeople, whom they had known during their former

occupation, and many of whom were the same people who had been firing

at us. I found Laguerre in counsel with Garcia, who was in high spirits,

and feeling exceedingly pleased with himself. He entirely ignored

our part in taking the town, and talked as though he had captured it

single-handed. The fact that the government troops had held him back

until we threatened them in the rear he did not consider as important. I

resented his swagger and the way he patronized Laguerre, but the General

did not seem to notice it, or was too well satisfied with the day’s work

to care. While I was at head-quarters our scouts came in to report that

the enemy was escaping along the trail to Comyagua, and that two of

their guns had stalled in the mud, not one mile out from Santa Barbara.

This was great news, and to my delight I was among those who hurried out

to the place where the guns were supposed to be. We found them abandoned

and stuck in the mud, and captured them without firing a shot. A half

hour later we paraded our prizes in a triumphal procession through the

streets of Santa Barbara, and were given a grand welcome by the allies

and the townspeople. I had never witnessed such enthusiasm, but it was

not long before I found out the cause of it. In our absence everybody

had been celebrating the victory with aguardiente, and half of Garcia’s

warriors had become so hopelessly drunk that they were lying all over

the plaza, and their comrades were dancing and tramping upon them.

I found that this orgy had put Laguerre in a fine rage, and I heard him

send out the provost guard with orders to throw all the drunken men into

the public corral for lost mules.

When he learned of this Garcia was equally indignant. The matter ended

with Laguerre’s locking up Garcia’s soldiers with our prisoners-of-war

in the yard barracks, where they sang and shouted and fought until they

were exhausted and went to sleep.

There was still much drink left on requisition, but the conquering

heroes had taken everything there was to eat, and for some time I

wandered around seeking for food before I finally discovered Miller,

Von Ritter, and Aiken in the garden of a private house enjoying a most

magnificent luncheon. I begged a share on the ground that I had just

overcome two helpless brass cannon, and they gave me a noisy welcome,

and made a place for me. I was just as happy as I was hungry, and I was

delighted to find someone with whom I could discuss the fight. For an

hour we sat laughing and drinking, and each talking at the top of his

voice and all at the same time. We were as elated as though we had

captured the city of London.

Of course Aiken had taken no part in the fight, and of course he made

light of it, which was just the sort of thing he would do, and he

especially poked fun at me and at my charge on the barracks. He called

it a “grand-stand play,” and said I was a “gallery fighter.” He said the

reason I ran out into the centre of the plaza was because I knew there

was a number of women looking out of the windows, and he pretended to

believe that when we entered the barracks they were empty, and that I

knew they were when I ordered the charge.

“It was the coffee they were after,” he declared. “As soon as Macklin

smelt the coffee he drew his big gilt sword and cried, ‘Up, my men,

inside yon fortress a free breakfast awaits us. Follow your gallant

leader!’ and they never stopped following until they reached the

kitchen. They’re going to make Macklin a bugler,” he said, “so that

after this he can blow his own trumpet without anyone being allowed to

interrupt him.”

I was glad to find that I could take what Aiken said of me as lightly as

did the others. Since the fight his power to annoy me had passed. I knew

better than anyone else that at one time during the morning I had been

in a very tight place, but I had stuck to it and won out. The knowledge

that I had done so gave me confidence in myself--not that I have ever

greatly lacked it, but it was a new kind of confidence. It made me

feel older, and less inclined to boast. In this it also helped out my

favorite theory that it must be easy for the man who has done something

to be modest. After he has proved himself capable in the eyes of his

comrades he doesn’t have to go about telling them how good he is. It is

a saying that heroes are always modest, but they are not really modest.

They just keep quiet, because they know their deeds are better talkers

than they are.

Miller and I had despatched an orderly to inform Laguerre of our

whereabouts, and at three o’clock in the afternoon the man returned to

tell us that we were to join the General in the plaza. On arriving there

we found the column already drawn up in the order of march, and an hour

later we filed out of the town down the same street by which we had

entered it that morning, and were cheered by the same people who eight

hours before had been firing upon us. We left five hundred of Garcia’s

men to garrison the place and prevent the townspeople from again

changing their sympathies, and continued on toward Tegucigalpa with

Garcia and the remainder of his force as our main body, and with the

Legion in the van. We were a week in reaching Comyagua, which was the

only place that we expected would offer any resistance until we arrived

outside of the capital. During that week our march was exactly similar

to the one we had made from the camp to Santa Barbara. There was the

same rough trail, the jungle crowding close on either flank, the same

dusty villages, the same fierce heat. At the villages of Tabla Ve and

at Seguatepec our scouts surprised the rear guard of the enemy and

stampeded it without much difficulty, and with only twenty men wounded.

As usual we had no one to thank for our success in these skirmishes but

ourselves, as Garcia’s men never appeared until just as the fight was

over, when they would come running up in great excitement. Laguerre

remarked that they needed a better knowledge of the bugle calls, as they

evidently mistook our “Cease firing” for “Advance.”

The best part of that week’s march lay in the many opportunities it gave

me to become acquainted with my General. The more I was permitted to

be with him the longer I wanted to be always with him, and with no one

else. After listening to Laguerre you felt that a talk with the other

men was a waste of time. There was nothing apparently that he did not

know of men and events, and his knowledge did not come from books, but

at first hand, from contact with the men, and from having taken part in

the events.

After we had pitched camp for the night the others would elect me to go

to his tent, and ask if we could come over and pay our respects. They

always selected me for this errand, because they said it was easy to see

that I was his favorite.

When we were seated about him on the rocks, or on ammunition boxes,

or on the ground, I would say, “Please, General, we want to hear some

stories,” and he would smile and ask, “What sort of stories?” and each

of us would ask for something different. Some would want to hear about

the Franco-Prussian war, and others of the Fall of Plevna or Don Carlos

or Garibaldi, or of the Confederate generals with whom Laguerre had

fought in Egypt.

When the others had said good-night he would sometimes call me back on

the pretence of giving me instructions for the morrow, and then would

come the really wonderful stories--the stories that no historian has

ever told. His talk was more educational than a library of histories,

and it filled me with a desire to mix with great people--to be their

companion as he had been, to have kings and pretenders for my intimates.

When one listened it sounded easy of accomplishment. It never seemed

strange to him that great rulers should have made a friend of a stray

soldier of fortune, an Irish adventurer--for Laguerre’s mother was

Irish; his father had been Colonel Laguerre, and once Military Governor

of Algiers--and given him their confidence. And yet I could see why they

should do so, for just the very reason that he took their confidence

as a matter of course, knowing that his loyalty would always be above

suspicion. He had a great capacity for loyalty. There was no taint in it

of self-interest, nor of snobbishness. He believed, for instance, in the

divine right of kings; and from what he let fall we could see that he

had given the most remarkable devotion not only to every cause for which

he had fought, but to the individual who represented it. That in time

each of these individuals had disappointed him had in no way shaken

his faith in the one to whom he next offered his sword. His was a most

beautiful example of modesty and of faith in one’s fellowman. It was

during this week, and because of these midnight talks with him around

the campfire, that I came to look up to him, and love him like a son.

But during that same week I was annoyed to find that many of our men

believed the version which Aiken had given of my conduct at Santa

Barbara. There were all sorts of stories circulating through the

Legion about me. They made me out a braggart, a bully, and a conceited

ass--indeed, almost everything unpleasant was said of me except that

I was a coward. Aiken, of course, kindly retold these stories to me,

either with the preface that he thought I ought to know what was being

said of me, or that he thought the stories would amuse me. I thanked him

and pretended to laugh, but I felt more like punching his head. People

who say that women are gossips, and that they delight in tearing each

other to pieces, ought to hear the talk of big, broad-shouldered men

around camp-fires. If you believe what they say, you would think that

every officer had either bungled or had funked the fight. And when a

man really has performed some act which cannot be denied they call him a

“swipe,” and say he did it to gain promotion, or to curry favor with

the General. Of course, it may be different in armies officered by

gentlemen; but men are pretty much alike all the world over, and I know

that those in our Legion were as given to gossip and slander as the

inmates of any Old Woman’s Home. I used to say to myself that so long as

I had the approval of Laguerre and of my own men and of my conscience I

could afford not to mind what the little souls said; but as a matter of

fact I did mind it, and it angered me exceedingly. Just as it hurt me at

the Point to see that I was not popular, it distressed me to find that

the same unpopularity had followed me into the Legion. The truth is that

the officers were jealous of me. They envied me my place as Adjutant,

and they were angry because Laguerre assigned one so much younger than

themselves to all the most important duties. They said that by showing

favoritism he was weakening his influence with the men and that he made

a “pet” of me. If he did I know that he also worked me five times as

hard as anyone else, and that he sent me into places where no one but

himself would go. The other officers had really no reason to object to

me personally. I gave them very little of my company, and though I spoke

pleasantly when we met I did not associate with them. Miller and Von

Ritter were always abusing me for not trying to make friends; but I told

them that, since the other officers spoke of me behind my back as a cad,

braggart, and snob, the least I could do was to keep out of their way.

I was even more unpopular with the men, but there was a reason for that;

for I was rather severe with them, and imposed as strict a discipline on

them as that to which I had been accustomed at West Point. The greater

part of them were ne’er-do-wells and adventurers picked up off the beach

at Greytown, and they were a thoroughly independent lot, reckless and

courageous; but I doubt if they had ever known authority or restraint,

unless it was the restraint of a jail. With the men of my own troop I

got on well enough, for they saw I understood how to take care of them,

and that things went on more smoothly when they were carried out as I

had directed, so they obeyed me without sulking. But with the men of the

troops not directly under my command I frequently met with trouble;

and on several occasions different men refused to obey my orders as

Adjutant, and swore and even struck at me, so that I had to knock them

down. I regretted this exceedingly, but I was forced to support my

authority in some way. After learning the circumstances Laguerre

exonerated me, and punished the men. Naturally, this did not help me

with the volunteers, and for the first ten days after I had joined the

Legion I was the most generally disliked man in it. This lasted until we

reached Comyagua, when something happened which brought the men over to

my side. Indeed, I believe I became a sort of a hero with them, and was

nearly as popular as Laguerre himself. So in the end it came out all

right, but it was near to being the death of me; and, next to hanging,

the meanest kind of a death a man could suffer.

When this incident occurred, which came so near to ending tragically

for me, we had been trying to drive the government troops out of the

cathedral of Comyagua. It was really a church and not a cathedral, but

it was so much larger than any other building we had seen in Honduras

that the men called it “The Cathedral.” It occupied one whole side of

the plaza. There were four open towers at each corner, and the front

entrance was as large as a barn. Their cannon, behind a barricade of

paving stones, were on the steps which led to this door.

I carried a message from Laguerre along the end of the plaza opposite

the cathedral, and as I was returning, the fire grew so hot that I

dropped on my face. There was a wooden watering-trough at the edge of

the sidewalk, and I crawled over and lay behind it. Directly back of me

was a restaurant into which a lot of Heinze’s men had broken their

way from the rear. They were firing up at the men in the towers of the

cathedral. My position was not a pleasant one, for every time I raised

my head the soldiers in the belfry would cut loose at me; and, though

they failed to hit me, I did not dare to get up and run. Already the

trough was leaking like a sieve. There was no officer with the men in

the cafe, so they were taking the word from one of their own number, and

were firing regularly in volleys. They fired three times after I took

shelter. They were so near me that at each volley I could hear the sweep

of the bullets passing about two yards above my head.

But at the fourth volley a bullet just grazed my cheek and drove itself

into the wood of the trough. It was so near that the splinters flew

in my eyes. I looked back over my shoulder and shouted, “Look out! You

nearly hit me then. Fire higher.”

One of the men in the cafe called back, “We can’t hear you,” and I

repeated, “Fire higher! You nearly hit me,” and pointed with my finger

to where the big 44-calibre ball had left a black hole in the green

paint of the trough. When they saw this there were excited exclamations

from the men, and I heard the one who was giving the orders repeating my

warning. And then came the shock of another volley. Simultaneously with

the shock a bullet cut through the wide brim of my sombrero and passed

into the box about two inches below my chin.

It was only then that I understood that this was no accident, but that

someone in the restaurant was trying to murder me. The thought was

hideous and sickening. I could bear the fire of the enemy from the

belfry--that was part of the day’s work; the danger of it only excited

me; but the idea that one of my own side was lying within twenty feet

of me, deliberately aiming with intent to kill, was outrageous and

revolting.

I scrambled to my feet and faced the open front of the restaurant, and

as I stood up there was, on the instant, a sharp fusillade from the

belfry tower. But I was now far too angry to consider that. The men were

kneeling just inside the restaurant, and as I halted a few feet from

them I stuck my finger through the bullet hole and held up my hat for

them to see.

“Look!” I shouted at them. “You did that, you cowards. You want to

murder me, do you?” I straightened myself and threw out my arms, “Well,

here’s your chance,” I cried. “Don’t shoot me in the back. Shoot me

now.”

The men gaped at me in utter amazement. Their lips hung apart. Their

faces were drawn in lines of anger, confusion, and dislike.

“Go on!” I shouted. “Fire a volley at that belfry, and let the man who

wants me have another chance at me. I’ll give the word. Make ready!” I

commanded.

There was a pause and a chorus of protests, and then mechanically each

man jerked out the empty shell and drove the next cartridge in place.

“Aim!” I shouted. They hesitated and then raised their pieces in a

wavering line, and I looked into the muzzles of a dozen rifles.

“Now then--damn you,” I cried. “Fire!”

They fired, and my eyes and nostrils were filled with burning smoke, but

not a bullet had passed near me.

“Again!” I shouted, stamping my foot. I was so angry that I suppose I

was really hardly accountable for what I did.

“I told you you were cowards,” I cried. “You can only shoot men in the

back. You don’t like me, don’t you?” I cried, taunting them. “I’m a

braggart, am I? Yes. I’m a bully, am I? Well, here’s your chance. Get

rid of me! Once again now. Make ready,” I commanded. “Aim! Fire!”

Again the smoke swept up, and again I had escaped. I remember that

I laughed at them and that the sound was crazy and hysterical, and

I remember that as I laughed I shook out my arms to show them I was

unhurt. And as I did that someone in the cafe cried, “Thank God!” And

another shouted, “That’s enough of this damn nonsense,” and a big man

with a bushy red beard sprang up and pulled off his hat.

“Now then,” he cried. “All together, boys. Three cheers for the little

one!” and they all jumped and shouted like mad people.

They cheered me again and again, although all the time the bullets from

the belfry were striking about them, ringing on the iron tables and on

the sidewalk, and tearing great gashes in the awnings overhead.

And then it seemed as though the sunlight on the yellow buildings and on

the yellow earth of the plaza had been suddenly shut off, and I dropped

into a well of blackness and sank deeper and deeper.

When I looked up the big man was sitting on the floor holding me as

comfortably as though I were a baby, and my face was resting against

his red beard, and my clothes and everything about me smelt terribly of

brandy.

But the most curious thing about it was that though they told everyone

in the Legion that I had stood up and made them shoot at me, they never

let anyone find out that I had been so weak as to faint.

I do not know whether it was the brandy they gave me that later led me

to charge those guns, but I appreciate now that my conduct was certainly

silly and mad enough to be excused only in that way. According to the

doctrine of chances I should have lost nine lives, and according to

the rules governing an army in the field I should have been

court-martialled. Instead of which, the men caught me up on their

shoulders and carried me around the plaza, and Laguerre and Garcia

looked on from the steps of the Cathedral and laughed and waved to us.

For five hours we had been lying in the blazing sun on the flat

house-tops, or hidden in the shops around the plaza, and the government

troops were still holding us off with one hand and spanking us with the

other. Their guns were so good that, when Heinze attempted to take up a

position against them with his old-style Gatlings, they swept him out

of the street, as a fire-hose flushes a gutter. For five hours they had

kept the plaza empty, and peppered the three sides of it so warmly that

no one of us should have shown his head.

But at every shot from the Cathedral our men grew more unmanageable,

and the longer the enemy held us back the more arrogant and defiant they

became. Ostensibly to obtain a better shot, but in reality from pure

deviltry, they would make individual sallies into the plaza, and, facing

the embrasure, would empty their Winchesters at one of its openings as

coolly as though they were firing at a painted bull’s-eye. The man who

first did this, the moment his rifle was empty, ran for cover and was

tumultuously cheered by his hidden audience. But in order to surpass

him, the next man, after he had emptied his gun, walked back very

deliberately, and the third man remained to refill his magazine. And

so a spirit of the most senseless rivalry sprang up, and one man after

another darted out into the plaza to cap the recklessness of those who

had gone before him.

It was not until five men were shot dead and lay sprawling and uncovered

in the sun that the madness seemed to pass. But my charging the

embrasure was always supposed to be a part of it, and to have

been inspired entirely by vanity and a desire to do something more

extravagantly reckless than any of the others. As a matter of fact I

acted on what has always seemed to me excellent reasoning, and if I went

alone, it was only because, having started, it seemed safer to go ahead

than to run all the way back again. I never blamed the men for running

back, and so I cannot see why they should blame me for having gone

ahead.

The enemy had ceased firing shrapnel and were using solid shot. When

their Gatlings also ceased, I guessed that it might be that the guns

were jammed. If I were right and if one avoided the solid shot by

approaching the barricade obliquely, there was no danger in charging the

barricade. I told my troop that I thought the guns were out of order,

and that if we rushed the barricade we could take it. When I asked for

volunteers, ten men came forward and at once, without asking permission,

which I knew I could not get, we charged across the plaza.

Both sides saw us at the same instant, and the firing was so fierce that

the men with me thought the Gatlings had reopened on us, and ran for

cover.

That left me about fifty feet from the barricade, and as it seemed a

toss-up whichever way I went I kept going forward. I caught the combing

of the embrasure with my hands, stuck my toes between the stones, and

scrambled to the top. The scene inside was horrible. The place looked

like a slaughter-yard. Only three men were still on their legs; the

rest were heaped around the guns. I threatened the three men with my

revolver, but they shrieked for mercy and I did not fire. The men in the

belfries, however, were showing no mercy to me, so I dropped inside the

wall and crawled for shelter beneath a caisson. But, I recognized on the

instant that I could not remain there. It was the fear of the Gatlings

only which was holding back our men, and I felt that before I was shot

they must know that the guns were jammed. So I again scrambled up to

the barricade, and waved my hat to them to come on. At the same moment

a bullet passed through my shoulder, and another burned my neck, and

one of the men who had begged for mercy beat me over the head with his

sword. I went down like a bag of flour, but before my eyes closed I saw

our fellows pouring out of the houses and sweeping toward me.

About an hour later, when Von Ritter had cleaned the hole in my shoulder

and plastered my skull, I sallied out again, and at sight of me the men

gave a shout, and picked me up, and, cheering, bore me around the plaza.

From that day we were the best of friends, and I think in time they grew

to like me.

Two days later we pitched camp outside of Tegucigalpa, the promised

city, the capital of the Republic.

Our points of attack were two: a stone bridge which joins the city

proper with the suburbs, and a great hill of rock called El Pecachua.

This hill either guards or betrays the capital. The houses reach almost

to its base and from its crest one can drop a shell through the roof of

any one of them. Consequently, when we arrived, we found its approaches

strongly entrenched and the hill occupied in force by the government

artillery. There is a saying in Honduras, which has been justified by

countless revolutions, and which dates back to the days of Morazan the

Liberator, that “He who takes Pecachua sleeps in the Palace.”

Garcia’s plan was for two days to bombard the city, and if, in that

time, Alvarez had not surrendered, to attack El Pecachua by night. As

usual, the work was so divided that the more dangerous and difficult

part of it fell to the Foreign Legion, for in his plan Garcia so ordered

it that Laguerre should storm Pecachua, while he advanced from the plain

and attacked the city at the stone bridge.

But this plan was never carried out, and after our first day in front

of the Capital, General Garcia never again gave an order to General

Laguerre.

After midnight on the evening of that first day Aiken came to the hut

where we had made our head-quarters and demanded to see the General on

a matter of life and death. With him, looking very uncertain as to the

propriety of the visit, were all the officers of the Legion.

The General was somewhat surprised and somewhat amused, but he invited

us to enter. When the officers had lined up against the walls he said,

“As a rule, I call my own councils of war, but no doubt Mr. Aiken has

some very good reason for affording me the pleasure of your company.

What is it, Mr. Aiken?”

Instead of answering him, Aiken said, with as much manner as that of

General Garcia himself, “I want a guard put outside this house, and I

want the men placed far enough from it to prevent their hearing what

I say.” The General nodded at me, and I ordered the sentries to

move farther from the hut. I still remember the tableau I saw when I

re-entered it, the row of officers leaning against the mud walls, the

candles stuck in their own grease on the table, the maps spread over

it, and the General and Aiken facing each other from its either end. It

looked like a drumhead court-martial.

When I had shut the door of the hut Aiken spoke. His tone was one of

calm unconcern.

“I have just come from the Palace,” he said, “where I have been having a

talk with President Alvarez.”

No one made a sound, nor no one spoke, but like one man everyone in the

room reached for his revolver. It was a most enlightening revelation of

our confidence in Aiken. Laguerre did not move. He was looking steadily

at Aiken and his eyes were shining like two arc lamps.

“By whose authority?” he asked.

We, who knew every tone of his voice, almost felt sorry for Aiken.

“By whose authority,” Laguerre repeated, “did you communicate with the

enemy?”

“It was an idea of my own,” Aiken answered simply. “I was afraid if

I told you you would interfere. Oh! I’m no soldier,” he said. He was

replying to the look in Laguerre’s face. “And I can tell you that there

are other ways of doing things than ‘according to Hardie.’ Alvarez’s

officers came to me after the battle of Comyagua. They expected to beat

you there, and when you chased them out of the city and started for

the Capital they thought it was all up with them, and decided to make

terms.”

“With you?” said Laguerre.

Aiken laughed without the least trace of resentment, and nodded.

“Well, you give a dog a bad name,” he said, “and it sticks to him. So,

they came to me. I’m no grand-stand fighter; I’m not a fighter at all.

I think fighting is silly. You’ve got all the young men you want to stop

bullets for you, without me. They like it. They like to catch ‘em in

their teeth. I don’t. But that’s not saying that I’m no good. You know

the old gag of the lion and the little mousie, and how the mouse came

along and chewed the lion out of the net. Well, that’s me. I’m no lion

going ‘round seeking whom I may devour.’ I’m just a sewer rat. But I can

tell you all,” he cried, slapping the table with his hand, “that, if it

hadn’t been for little mousie, every one of you lions would have been

shot against a stone wall. And if I can’t prove it, you can take a shot

at me. I’ve been the traitor. I’ve been the go-between from the first. I

arranged the whole thing. The Alvarez crowd told me to tell Garcia that

even if he did succeed in getting into the Palace the Isthmian Line

would drive him out of it in a week. But that if he’d go away from the

country, they’d pay him fifty thousand pesos and a pension. He’s got the

Isthmian Line’s promise in writing.

“This joint attack he’s planned for Wednesday night is a fake. He

doesn’t mean to fight. Nobody means to fight except against you. Every

soldier and every gun in the city is to be sent out to Pecachua to trap

you into an ambush. Natives who pretend to have deserted from Alvarez

are to lead you into it. That was an idea of mine. They thought it was

very clever. Garcia is to make a pretence of attacking the bridge and

a pretence of being driven back. Then messengers are to bring word that

the Foreign Legion has been cut to pieces at Pecachua, and he is to

disband his army, and tell every man to look out for himself.

“If you want proofs of this, I’ll furnish them to any man here that

you’ll pick out. I told Alvarez that one of your officers was working

against you with me, and that at the proper time I’d produce him. Now,

you choose which officer that shall be. He can learn for himself that

all I’m telling you is true. But that will take time!” Aiken cried, as

Laguerre made a movement to interrupt him. “And if you want to get out

of this fix alive, you’d better believe me, and start for the coast at

once--now--to-night!”

Laguerre laughed and sprang to his feet. His eyes were shining and the

color had rushed to his cheeks. He looked like a young man masquerading

in a white wig. He waved his hand at Aiken with a gesture that was part

benediction and part salute.

“I do believe you,” he cried, “and thank you, sir.” He glanced sharply

at the officers around him as though he were weighing the value of each.

“Gentlemen,” he cried, “often in my life I have been prejudiced, and

often I have been deceived, and I think that it is time now that I

acted for myself. From the first, the burden of this expedition has been

carried by the Foreign Legion. I know that; you, who fought the battles,

certainly know it. We invaded Honduras with a purpose. We came to obtain

for the peons the debt that is due them and to give them liberty and

free government. And whether our allies run away or betray us, that

purpose is still the same.”

He paused as though for the first time it had occurred to him that the

motives of the others might not be as his own.

“Am I right?” he asked, eagerly. “Are you willing to carry out that

purpose?” he demanded. “Are you ready to follow me now, to-night--not to

the coast”--he shouted--“but to the Capital--to the top of Pecachua?”

Old man Webster jumped in front of us, and shot his arm into the air as

though it held a standard.

“We’ll follow you to hell and back again,” he cried.

I would not have believed that so few men could have made so much noise.

We yelled and cheered so wildly that we woke the camp. We could hear the

men running down the road, and the sentries calling upon them to halt.

The whole Legion was awake and wondering. Webster beat us into silence

by pounding the table with his fist.

“I have lived in this country for forty years,” he cried, with his eyes

fixed upon Laguerre, “and you are the first white man I have known who

has not come into it, either flying from the law, or to rob and despoil

it. I know this country. I know all of Central America, and it is a

wonderful country. There is not a fruit nor a grain nor a plant that you

cannot dig out of it with your bare fingers. It has great forests, great

pasture-lands, and buried treasures of silver and iron and gold. But it

is cursed with the laziest of God’s creatures, and the men who rule

them are the most corrupt and the most vicious. They are the dogs in

the manger among rulers. They will do nothing to help their own country;

they will not permit others to help it. They are a menace and an insult

to civilization, and it is time that they stepped down and out, and made

way for their betters, or that they were kicked out. One strong man,

if he is an honest man, can conquer and hold Central America. William

Walker was such a man. I was with him when he ruled the best part of

this country for two years. He governed all Nicaragua with two hundred

white men, and never before or since have the pueblo known such peace

and justice and prosperity as Walker gave them.”

Webster threw himself across the table and pointed his hand at Laguerre.

“And you, General Laguerre!” he cried, “and you? Do you see your duty?

You say it calls you to-night to El Pecachua. Then if it does, it calls

you farther--to the Capital! There can be no stopping half-way now, no

turning back. If we follow you to-night to Pecachua, we follow you to

the Palace.”

Webster’s voice rose until it seemed to shake the palm-leaf roof. He

was like a man possessed. He sprang up on the table, and from the height

above us hurled his words at Laguerre.

“We are not fighting for any half-breed now,” he cried; “we are fighting

for you. We know you. We believe in you. We mean to make you President,

and we will not stop there. Our motto shall be Walker’s motto, ‘Five

or none,’ and when we have taken this Republic we shall take the

other four, and you will be President of the United States of Central

America.”

We had been standing open-eyed, open-mouthed, every nerve trembling, and

at these words we shrieked and cheered, but Webster waved at us with an

angry gesture and leaned toward Laguerre.

“You will open this land,” he cried, “with roads and railways. You will

feed the world with its coffee. You will cut the Nicaragua Canal. And

you will found an empire--not the empire of slaves that Walker planned,

but an empire of freed men, freed by you from their tyrants and from

themselves. They tell me, General,” he cried, “that you have fought

under thirteen flags. To-night, sir, you shall fight under your own!”

We all cheered and cheered again, the oldest as well as myself, and I

cheered louder than any, until I looked at Laguerre. Then I felt how

terribly real it was to him. Until I looked at him it had seemed quite

sane and feasible. But when I saw how deeply he was moved, and that

his eyes were brimming with pride and resolve, I felt that it was a mad

dream, and that we were wicked not to wake him. For I, who loved him

like a son, understood what it meant to him. In his talk along the trail

and by the camp-fire he had always dreamed of an impossible republic,

an Utopia ruled by love and justice, and I now saw he believed that the

dreams had at last come true. I knew that the offer these men had made

to follow him, filled him with a great happiness and gratitude. And that

he, who all his life had striven so earnestly and so loyally for others,

would give his very soul for men who fought for him. I was not glad that

they had offered to make him their leader. I could only look ahead with

miserable forebodings and feel bitterly sorry that one so fine and good

was again to be disillusioned and disappointed and cast down.

But there was no time that night to look ahead. The men were outside the

hut, a black, growling mob crying for revenge upon Garcia. Had we not

at once surrounded them they would have broken for his camp and murdered

him in his hammock, and with him his ignorant, deceived followers.

But when Webster spoke to them as he had spoken to us, and told them

what we planned to do, and Laguerre stepped out into the moon-light,

they forgot their anger in their pride for him, and at his first word

they fell into the ranks as obediently as so many fond and devoted

children.

In Honduras a night attack is a discredited manoeuvre. It is considered

an affront to the Blessed Virgin, who first invented sleep. And those

officers who that night guarded Pecachua being acquainted with Garcia’s

plot, were not expecting us until two nights later, when we were to walk

into their parlor, and be torn to pieces. Consequently, when Miller,

who knew Pecachua well, having served without political prejudice in

six revolutions, led us up a by-path to its top, we found the government

troops sleeping sweetly. Before their only sentry had discovered that

someone was kneeling on his chest, our men were in possession of their

batteries.

That morning when the sun rose gloriously, as from a bath, all pink and

shining and dripping with radiance, and the church bells began to clang

for early mass, and the bugles at the barracks sounded the jaunty call

of the reveille, two puffs of white smoke rose from thecrest of El

Pecachua and drifted lazily away. At the same instant a shell sang over

the roofs of Tegucigalpa, howling jeeringly, and smashed into the pots

and pans of the President’s kitchen; another, falling two miles farther

to the right, burst through the white tent of General Garcia, and the

people in the streets, as they crossed themselves in fear, knew that El

Pecachua had again been taken, and that that night a new President would

sleep in the Palace.

All through the hot hours of the morning the captured guns roared and

echoed, until at last we saw Garcia’s force crawling away in a crowd

of dust toward the hills, and an hour later Alvarez, with the household

troops, abandoning the Capital and hastening after him.

We were too few to follow, but we whipped them forward with our shells.

A half-hour later a timid group of merchants and foreign consuls, led by

the Bishop and bearing a great white flag, rode out to the foot of the

rock and surrendered the city.

I am sure no government was ever established more quickly than ours.

We held our first cabinet meeting twenty minutes after we entered the

capital, and ten minutes later Webster, from the balcony of the Palace,

proclaimed Laguerre President and Military Dictator of Honduras.

Laguerre in turn nominated Webster, on account of his knowledge of

the country, Minister of the Interior, and made me Vice-President and

Minister of War. No one knew what were the duties of a Vice-President,

so I asked if I might not also be Provost-Marshal of the city, and I was

accordingly appointed to that position and sent out into the street to

keep order.

Aiken, as a reward for his late services, was made head of the detective

department and Chief of Police. His first official act was to promote

two bare-footed policemen who on his last visit to the Capital had put

him under arrest.

The General, or the President, as we now called him, at once issued a

ringing proclamation in which he promised every liberty that the people

of a free republic should enjoy, and announced that in three months he

would call a general election, when the people could either reelect

him, or a candidate of their own choice. He announced also that he would

force the Isthmian Line to pay the people the half million of dollars it

owed them, and he suggested that this money be placed to the credit of

the people, and that they should pay no taxes until the sum was consumed

in public improvements. Up to that time every new President had imposed

new taxes; none had ever suggested remitting them altogether, and this

offer made a tremendous sensation in our favor.

There were other departures from the usual procedure of victorious

presidents which helped much to make us popular. One was the fact that

Laguerre did not shoot anybody against the barrack wall, nor levy

forced “loans” upon the foreign merchants. Indeed, the only persons who

suffered on the day he came into power were two of our own men, whom I

caught looting. I put them to sweeping the streets, each with a ball and

chain to his ankle, as an example of the sort of order we meant to keep

among ourselves.

Before mid-day Aiken sent a list, which his spies had compiled, of

sympathizers with Alvarez. He guaranteed to have them all in jail before

night. But Laguerre sent for them and promised them, if they remained

neutral, they should not be molested. Personally, I have always been of

the opinion that most of the persons on Aiken’s list of suspects were

most worthy merchants, to whom he owed money.

Laguerre gave a long audience to the cashier of the Manchester and

Central American Bank, Limited, which finances Honduras, and assured him

that the new administration would not force the bank to accept the paper

money issued by Alvarez, but would accept the paper money issued by the

bank, which was based on gold. As a result, the cashier came down the

stair-case of the Palace three steps at a time, and later our censor

read his cable to the Home Bank in England, in which he said that

Honduras at last had an honest man for President. What was more to the

purpose, he reopened his bank at three o’clock, and quoted Honduranian

money on his blackboard at a rise of three per cent. over that of the

day before. This was a great compliment to our government, and it must

have impressed the other business men, for by six o’clock that night a

delegation of American, German, and English shopkeepers called on the

President and offered him a vote of confidence. They volunteered also to

form a home-guard for the defence of the city, and to help keep him in

office.

So, by dinner-time, we had won over the foreign element entirely, and

the consuls had cabled their several ministers, advising them to advise

their governments to recognize ours.

It was a great triumph for fair promises backed by fair dealing.

Although I was a cabinet minister and had a right to have my say I did

not concern myself much with these graver problems of the Palace.

Instead, my first act was to cable to Beatrice that we were safe in

the Capital and that I was second in command. I did not tell her I was

Vice-President of a country of 300,000 people, because at Dobbs Ferry

such a fact would seem hardly probable. After that I spent the day very

happily galloping around the town with the Provost Guard at my heels,

making friends with the inhabitants, and arranging for their defence. I

posted a gun at the entrance to each of the three principal streets, and

ordered mounted scouts to patrol the plains outside the Capital. I also

remembered Heinze and the artillerymen who were protecting us on the

heights of Pecachua, and sent them a moderate amount of rum, and an

immoderate amount of canned goods and cigars. I also found time to

design a wonderful uniform for the officers of our Legion--a dark-green

blouse with silver facings and scarlet riding breeches--and on the

plea of military necessity I ordered six tailors to sit up all night to

finish them.

Uniforms for the men I requisitioned from the stores of the Government,

and ordered the red facings changed to yellow.

The next day when we paraded in full dress the President noticed this,

and remarked, “No one but Macklin could have converted a battery of

artillery, without the loss of a single gun or the addition of a single

horse, into a battalion of cavalry.”

We had escorted the President back to the Palace, and I was returning

to the barracks at the head of the Legion, with the local band playing

grandly before me, and the people bowing from the sidewalks, when a girl

on a gray pony turned into the plaza and rode toward us.

She was followed by a group of white men, but I saw only the girl. When

I recognized even at a distance that she was a girl from the States my

satisfaction was unbounded. It had needed only the presence of such an

audience to give the final touch of pleasure to my triumphant progress.

My new uniform had been finished only just in time.

When I first saw the girl I was startled merely because any white woman

in Honduras is an unusual spectacle, but as she rode nearer I knew that,

had I seen this girl at home among a thousand women, I would have looked

only at her.

She wore a white riding-habit, and a high-peaked Mexican sombrero, and

when her pony shied at the sound of the music she raised her head, and

the sun struck on the burnished braid around the brim, and framed her

face with a rim of silver. I had never seen such a face. It was so

beautiful that I drew a great breath of wonder, and my throat tightened

with the deep delight that rose in me.

I stared at her as she rode forward, because I could not help myself. If

an earthquake had opened a crevasse at my feet I would not have lowered

my eyes. I had time to guess who she was, for I knew there could be

no other woman so beautiful in Honduras, except the daughter of Joseph

Fiske. Had not Aiken said of her, “When she passes, the native women

kneel by the trail and cross themselves?”

I rode toward her fearfully, conscious only of a sudden deep flood of

gratitude for anything so nobly beautiful. I was as humbly thankful as

the crusader who is rewarded by his first sight of the Holy City, and I

was glad, too, that I came into her presence worthily, riding in advance

of a regiment. I was proud of our triumphant music, of our captured

flags and guns, and the men behind me, who had taken them.

I still watched her as our column drew nearer, and she pulled her pony

to one side to let it pass. I felt as though I were marching in review

before an empress, and I all but lifted my sword-blade in salute.

But as we passed I saw that the look on her face was that of a superior

and critical adversary. It was a glance of amused disdain, softened only

by a smile of contempt. As it fell upon me I blushed to the rim of my

sombrero. I felt as meanly as though I had been caught in a lie.

With her eyes, I saw the bare feet of our negro band, our ill-fitting

uniforms with their flannel facings, the swagger of our officers,

glancing pompously from their half-starved, unkempt ponies upon the

native Indians, who fawned at us from the sidewalks.

I saw that to her we were so many red-shirted firemen, dragging a wooden

hose-cart; a company of burnt-cork minstrels, kicking up the dust of

a village street; that we were ridiculous, lawless, absurd, and it was

like a blow over my heart that one so noble-looking should be so blind

and so unjust. I was swept with bitter indignation. I wanted to turn in

my saddle and cry to her that beneath the flannel facings at which she

laughed these men wore deep, uncared-for, festering wounds; that to

march thus through the streets of this tiny Capital they had waded

waist-high through rivers, had starved in fever camps, and at any hour

when I had called on them had run forward to throw cold hands with

death.

The group of gentlemen who were riding with the girl had halted their

ponies by the sidewalk, and as I drew near I noted that one of them wore

the uniform of an ensign in our navy. This puzzled me for an instant,

until I remembered I had heard that the cruiser Raleigh was lying at

Amapala. I was just passing the group when one of them, with the evident

intent that I should hear him, raised his voice.

“Well, here’s the army,” he said, “but where’s Falstaff? I don’t see

Laguerre.”

My face was still burning with the blush the girl had brought to it, and

the moment was not the one that any man should have chosen to ridicule

my general. Because the girl had laughed at us I felt indignant with

her, but for the same offence I was grateful to the man, for the reason

that he was a man, and could be punished. I whirled my pony around and

rode it close against his.

“You must apologize for that,” I said, speaking in a low voice, “or I’ll

thrash you with this riding-whip.”

He was a young man, exceedingly well-looking, slim and tall, and with

a fine air of good breeding. He looked straight into my eyes without

moving. His hands remained closed upon the pommel of his saddle.

“If you raise that whip,” he said, “I’ll take your tin sword away from

you, and spank you with it.”

Never in my life had anyone hurt me so terribly. And the insult had come

before my men and his friends and the people in the street. It turned

me perfectly cold, and all the blood seemed to run to my eyes, so that

I saw everything in a red haze. When I answered him my voice sounded

hoarse and shaky.

“Get down,” I said. “Get down, or I’ll pull you down. I’m going to

thrash you until you can’t stand or see.”

He struck at me with his riding-crop, but I caught him by the collar and

with an old trick of the West Point riding-hall threw him off into the

street, and landed on my feet above him. At the same moment Miller and

Von Ritter drove their ponies in between us, and three of the man’s

friends pushed in from the other side. But in spite of them we reached

each other, and I struck up under his guard and beat him savagely on the

face and head, until I found his chin, and he went down. There was an

awful row. The whole street was in an uproar, women screamed, the ponies

were rearing and kicking, the natives jabbering, and my own men swearing

and struggling in a ring around us.

“My God, Macklin!” I heard Von Ritter cry, “stop it! Behave yourself!”

He rode at our men with his sword and drove them back into ranks. I

heard him shout, “Fall in there. Forward. March!”

“This is your idea of keeping order, is it?” Miller shouted at me.

“He insulted Laguerre,” I shouted back, and scrambled into the saddle.

But I was far from satisfied. I, Vice-President, Minister of War,

Provost-Marshal of the city, had been fighting with my fists in the open

street before half the population. I knew what Laguerre would say, and I

wondered hotly if the girl had seen me, and I swore at myself for having

justified her contempt for us. Then I swore at myself again for giving

a moment’s consideration to what she thought. I was recalled to the

present by the apparition of my adversary riding his pony toward me,

partly supported and partly restrained by two of his friends. He was

trembling with anger and pain and mortification.

“You shall fight me for this,” he cried.

I was about to retort that he looked as though I had been fighting him,

but it is not easy to laugh at a man when he is covered with dust and

blood, and this one was so sorry a spectacle that I felt ashamed for

him, and said nothing.

“I am not a street fighter,” he raged. “I wasn’t taught to fight in

a lot. But I’ll fight you like a gentleman, just as though you were a

gentleman. You needn’t think you’ve heard the last of me. My friends

will act for me, and, unless you’re a coward, you will name your

seconds.”

Before I could answer, Von Ritter had removed his hat and was bowing

violently from his saddle.

“I am Baron Herbert Von Ritter,” he said “late Aide-de-Camp to his

Majesty, the King of Bavaria. If you are not satisfied, Captain Miller

and myself will do ourselves the honor of calling on your friends.”

His manner was so grand that it quite calmed me to hear him.

One of the men who was supporting my adversary, a big, sun-burned man,

in a pith helmet, shook his head violently.

“Here, none of that, Miller,” he said; “drop it. Can’t you see the boy

isn’t himself? This isn’t the time to take advantage of him.”

“We are only trying to oblige the gentleman,” said Miller. “The duel is

the only means of defence we’ve left you people. But I tell you, if

any of you insult our government again, we won’t even give you that

satisfaction--we’ll ride you out of town.”

The man in the pith helmet listened to Miller without any trace of

emotion. When Miller had finished he laughed.

“We’ve every means of defence that an American citizen needs when he

runs up against a crowd like yours,” he said. He picked up his reins and

turned his horse’s head down the street. “You will find us at the Hotel

Continental,” he added. “And as for running us out of town,” he shouted

over his shoulder, “there’s an American man-of-war at Amapala that is

going to chase you people out of it as soon as we give the word.”

When I saw that Miller and Von Ritter were arranging a duel, I felt no

further interest in what the man said, until he threatened us with the

warship. At that I turned toward the naval ensign to see how he received

it.

He was a young man, some years older than myself, with a smooth face and

fair, yellow hair and blue eyes. I found that the blue eyes were fixed

upon me steadily and kindly. When he saw that I had caught him watching

me he raised his hand smartly to the visor.

I do not know why, but it made the tears come to my eyes. It was so

different from the salute of our own men; it was like being back again

under the flag at the Point. It was the recognition of the “regular”

that touched me, of a bona-fide, commissioned officer.

But I returned his salute just as stiffly as though I were a

commissioned officer myself. And then a strange thing happened. The

sailor-boy jerked his head toward the retreating form of my late

adversary, and slowly stuck his tongue into his cheek, and winked.

Before I could recover myself, he had caught up my hand and given it a

sharp shake, and galloped after his friends.

Miller and I fell in at the rear of the column.

“Who were those men?” I asked.

“The Isthmian Line people, of course,” he answered, shortly. “The man

in the helmet is Graham, the manager of the Copan Silver Mines. They’ve

just unloaded them on Fiske. That’s why they’re so thick with him.”

“And who was the chap who insulted Laguerre?” I asked. “The one whose

face I slapped?”

“Face you slapped? Ha!” Miller snorted. “I hope you’ll never slap my

face. Why, don’t you know who he is?” he exclaimed, with a grin. “I

thought, of course, you did. I thought that’s why you hit him. He’s

young Fiske, the old man’s son. That was his sister riding ahead of

them. Didn’t you see that girl?”

V

The day we attacked the capital Joseph Fiske and his party were absent

from it, visiting Graham, the manager of the Copan Mines, at his country

place, and when word was received there that we had taken the city,

Graham urged Mr. Fiske not to return to it, but to ride at once to the

coast and go on board the yacht. They told him that the capital was in

the hands of a mob.

But what really made Graham, and the rest of the Copan people, and the

Isthmian crowd, who now were all working together against us, so anxious

to get Fiske out of Honduras, was that part of Laguerre’s proclamation

in which he said he would force the Isthmian Line to pay its just debts.

They were most anxious that Fiske should not learn from us the true

version of that claim for back pay. They had told him we were a lot of

professional filibusters, that the demand we made for the half-million

of dollars was a gigantic attempt at blackmail. They pointed out to him

that the judges of the highest courts of Honduras had decided against

the validity of our claim, but they did not tell him that Alvarez had

ordered the judges to decide in favor of the company, nor how much money

they had paid Alvarez and the judges for that decision. Instead they

urged that Garcia, a native of the country, had submitted to the decree

of the courts and had joined Alvarez, and that now the only people

fighting against the Isthmian Line were foreign adventurers. They asked,

Was it likely such men would risk their lives to benefit the natives?

Was it not evident that they were fighting only for their own pockets?

And they warned Fiske that while Laguerre was still urging his claim

against this company, it would be unwise for the president of that

company to show himself in Tegucigalpa.

But Fiske laughed at the idea of danger to himself. He said a

revolution, like cock-fighting, was a national pastime, and no more

serious, and that should anyone attempt to molest the property of

the company, he would demand the protection of his own country as

represented by the Raleigh.

He accordingly rode back to the capital, and with his son and daughter

and the company’s representatives and the Copan people, returned to the

same rooms in the Hotel Continental he had occupied three days before,

when Alvarez was president. This made it embarrassing for us, as the

Continental was the only hotel in the city, and as it was there we had

organized our officers’ mess. In consequence, while there was no open

war, the dining-room of the hotel was twice daily the meeting-place of

the two opposing factions, and Von Ritter told me that until matters had

been arranged with the seconds of young Fiske I could not appear there,

as it would be “contrary to the code.”

But our officers were not going to allow the Copan and Isthmian people

to drive them out of their head-quarters, so at the table d’hote

luncheon that day our fellows sat at one end of the room, and Fiske and

Miss Fiske, Graham and his followers at the other. They entirely ignored

each other. After the row I had raised in the street, each side was

anxious to avoid further friction.

As I sat in the barracks over my solitary luncheon my thoughts were

entirely on the duel.

It had been forced on me, so I accepted it; but it struck me as a most

silly proceeding. Young Fiske had insulted my General and my comrades.

He had done so publicly and with intent. I had thrashed him as I said I

would, and as far as I could see the incident was closed. But Miller and

Von Ritter, who knew Honduras from Fonseca Bay to Truxillo, assured me

that, unless I met the man, who had insulted me before the people, our

prestige would be entirely destroyed. To the Honduranian mind, the fact

that I had thrashed him for so doing, would not serve as a substitute

for a duel, it only made a duel absolutely necessary. As I had

determined, if we did meet, that I would not shoot at him, I knew I

would receive no credit from such an encounter, and, so far as I could

see, I was being made ridiculous, and stood a very fair chance of being

killed.

I sincerely hoped that young Fiske would apologize. I assured myself

that my reluctance to meet him was due to the fact that I scorned to

fight a civilian. I always classed civilians, with women and children,

as non-combatants. But in my heart I knew that it was not this prejudice

which made me hesitate. The sister was the real reason. That he was her

brother was the only fact of importance. Had his name been Robinson or

Brown, I would have gone out and shot at the calves of his legs most

cheerfully, and taken considerable satisfaction in the notoriety that

would have followed my having done so.

But I could never let his sister know that I had only fired in the air,

and I knew that if I fought her brother she would always look upon me as

one who had attempted to murder him. I could never speak to her, or even

look at her again. And at that moment I felt that if I did not meet her,

I could go without meeting any other women for many years to come. She

was the most wonderful creature I had ever seen. She was not beautiful,

as Beatrice was beautiful, in a womanly, gracious way, but she had the

beauty of something unattainable. Instead of inspiring you, she filled

you with disquiet. She seemed to me a regal, goddess-like woman, one

that a man might worship with that tribute of fear and adoration that

savages pay to the fire and the sun.

I had ceased to blush because she had laughed at us. I had begun to

think that it was quite right that she should do so. To her we were

lawless adventurers, exiles, expatriates, fugitives. She did not

know that most of us were unselfish, and that our cause was just.

She thought, if she thought of us at all, that we were trying to levy

blackmail on her father. I did not blame her for despising us. I only

wished I could tell her how she had been deceived, and assure her that

among us there was one, at least, who thought of her gratefully and

devotedly, and who would suffer much before he would hurt her or hers. I

knew that this was so, and I hoped her brother would not be such an ass

as to insist upon a duel, and make me pretend to fight him, that her

father would be honest enough to pay his debts, and that some day she

and I might be friends.

But these hopes were killed by the entrance of Miller and Von Ritter.

They looked very grave.

“He won’t apologize,” Miller said. “We arranged that you are to meet

behind the graveyard at sunrise to-morrow morning.” I was bitterly

disappointed, but of course I could not let them see that.

“Does Laguerre know?” I asked.

“No,” Miller said, “neither does old man Fiske. We had the deuce of

a time. Graham and Lowell--that young Middy from the Raleigh--are his

seconds, and we found we were all agreed that he had better apologize.

Lowell, especially, was very keen that you two should shake hands, but

when they went out to talk it over with Fiske, he came back with them

in a terrible rage, and swore he’d not apologize, and that he’d either

shoot you or see you hung. Lowell told him it was all rot that two

Americans should be fighting duels, but Fiske said that when he was

in Rome, he did as Romans did; that he had been brought up in Paris to

believe in duels, and that a duel he would have. Then the sister came

in, and there was a hell of a row!”

“The sister!” I exclaimed.

Miller nodded, and Von Ritter and he shook their heads sadly at each

other, as though the recollection of the interview weighed heavily.

“Yes, his sister,” said Miller. “You know how these Honduranian places

are built, if a parrot scratches his feathers in the patio you can hear

it in every room in the house. Well, she was reading on the balcony, and

when her brother began to rage around and swear he’d have your blood,

she heard him, and opened the shutters and came in. She didn’t stay

long, and she didn’t say much, but she talked to us as though we were so

many bad children. I never felt so mean in my life.”

“She should not have been there,” said Von Ritter, stolidly. “It was

most irregular.”

“Fiske tried the high and mighty, brotherly act with her,” Miller

continued, “but she shook him up like a charge of rack-a-rock. She told

him that a duel was unmanly and un-American, and that he would be a

murderer. She said his honor didn’t require him to risk his life for

every cad who went about armed, insulting unarmed people--”

“What did she say?” I cried. “Say that again.”

Von Ritter tossed up his arms and groaned, but Miller shook his fist at

me.

“Now, don’t you go and get wrathy,” he roared. “We’ll not stand it.

We’ve been abused by everybody else on your account to-day, and we won’t

take it from you. It doesn’t matter what the girl said. They probably

told her you began the fight, and--”

“She said I was a cad,” I repeated, “and that I struck an unarmed man.

Didn’t her brother tell her that he first insulted me, and struck me

with his whip, and that I only used my fists. Didn’t any of you tell

her?”

“No!” roared Miller; “what the devil has that got to do with it? She was

trying to prevent the duel. We were trying to prevent the duel. That’s

all that’s important. And if she hadn’t made the mistake of thinking you

might back out of it, we could have prevented it. Now we can’t.”

I began to wonder if the opinion the Fiske family had formed of me, on

so slight an acquaintance, was not more severe than I deserved, but I

did not let the men see how sorely the news had hurt me. I only asked:

“What other mistake did the young lady make?”

“She meant it all right,” said Miller, “but it was a woman’s idea of a

bluff, and it didn’t go. She told us that before we urged her brother on

to fight, we should have found out that he has spent the last five

years in Paris, and that he’s the gilt-edged pistol-shot of the _salle

d’armes_ in the Rue Scribe, that he can hit a scarf-pin at twenty paces.

Of course that ended it. The Baron spoke up in his best style and said

that in the face of this information it would be now quite impossible

for our man to accept an apology without being considered a coward, and

that a meeting must take place. Then the girl ran to her brother and

said, ‘What have I done?’ and he put his arm around her and walked

her out of the room. Then we arranged the details in peace and came on

here.”

“Good,” I said, “you did exactly right. I’ll meet you at dinner at the

hotel.”

But at this Von Ritter protested that I must not dine there, that it was

against the code.

“The code be hanged,” I said. “If I don’t turn up at dinner they’ll

say I’m afraid to show myself out of doors. Besides, if I must be shot

through the scarf-pin before breakfast to-morrow morning, I mean to have

a good dinner to-night.”

They left me, and I rode to the palace to make my daily report to the

president. I was relieved to find that both he and Webster were so deep

in affairs of state that they had heard nothing of my row in the Plaza,

nor of the duel to follow. They were happy as two children building

forts of sand on the sea-shore. They had rescinded taxes, altered the

tariffs, reorganized the law-courts, taken over the custom-houses

by telegraph, and every five minutes were receiving addresses from

delegations of prominent Honduranians. Nicaragua and Salvador had both

recognized their government, and concession hunters were already cooling

their heels in the ante-room. In every town and seaport the adherents of

Garcia had swung over to Laguerre and our government, and our flag was

now flying in every part of Honduras. It was the flag of Walker, with

the five-pointed blood-red star. We did not explain the significance of

the five points.

I reported that my scouts had located Alvarez and Garcia in the hills

some five miles distant from the capital, that they were preparing a

permanent camp there, and that they gave no evidence of any immediate

intention of attacking the city. General Laguerre was already informed

of the arrival of Mr. Fiske, and had arranged to give him an audience

the following morning. He hoped in this interview to make clear to him

how just was the people’s claim for the half million due them, and to

obtain his guaranty that the money should be paid.

As I was leaving the palace I met Aiken. He was in his most cynical

mood. He said that the air was filled with plots and counter-plots, and

that treachery stalked abroad. He had been unsuccessful in trying to

persuade the president to relieve Heinze of his command on Pecachua. He

wanted Von Ritter or myself put in his place.

“It is the key to the position,” Aiken said, “and if Heinze should sell

us out, we would have to run for our lives. These people are all smiles

and ‘vivas’ to-day because we are on top. But if we lost Pecachua, every

man of them would turn against us.”

I laughed and said: “We can trust Heinze. If I had your opinion of my

fellow-man, I’d blow my brains out.”

“If I hadn’t had such a low opinion of my fellow-man,” Aiken retorted,

“he’d have blown your brains out. Don’t forget that.”

“No one listens to me,” he said. “I consider that I am very hardly used.

For a consideration a friend of Alvarez told me where Alvarez had buried

most of the government money. I went to the cellar and dug it up and

turned it over to Laguerre. And what do you think he’s doing with it!”

Aiken exclaimed with indignation. “He’s going to give the government

troops their back pay, and the post-office clerks, and the peons who

worked on the public roads.”

I said I considered that that was a most excellent use to make of the

money; that from what I had seen of the native troops, it would turn our

prisoners of war into our most loyal adherents.

“Of course it will!” Aiken agreed. “Why, if the government troops out

there in the hills with Alvarez knew we were paying sixty pesos for

soldiers, they’d run to join us so quick that they’d die on the way of

sunstroke. But that’s not it. Where do we come in? What do we get out of

this? Have we been fighting for three months just to pay the troops who

have been fighting against us? Charity begins at home, I think.”

“You get your own salary, don’t you?” I asked.

“Oh, I’m not starving,” Aiken said, with a grin. “There’s a lot of loot

in being chief-of-police. This is going to be a wide-open town if I can

run it.”

“Well, you can’t,” I laughed. “Not as long as I’m its provost marshal.”

“Yes, and how long will that be?” Aiken retorted. “You take my advice

and make money now, while you’ve got the club to get it with you. Why,

if I had your job I could scare ten thousand sols out of these merchants

before sunrise. Instead of which you walk around nights to see their

front doors are locked. Let them do the walking. We’ve won, and let’s

enjoy the spoil. Eat, live, and be merry, my boy, for to-morrow you

die.”

“I hope not,” I exclaimed, and I ran down the steps of the palace and

turned toward the barracks.

“To-morrow you die,” I repeated, but I could not arouse a single

emotion. Portents and premonitions may frighten some people, but the

only superstition I hold to is to believe in the luck of Royal Macklin.

“What if Fiske can hit a scarf-pin at twenty paces!” I said to myself,

“he can’t hit me.” I was just as sure of it as I was of the fact that

when I met him I was going to fire in the air. I cannot tell why. I was

just sure of it.

The dining-room at the Continental held three long tables. That night

our officers sat at one. Mr. Fiske and his party were at the one

farthest away, and a dining-club of consular agents, merchants, and the

Telegraph Company’s people occupied the one in between. I could see her

whenever the German consul bent over his food. She was very pale and

tired-looking, but in the white evening frock she wore, all soft and

shining with lace, she was as beautiful as the moonlit night outside.

She never once looked in our direction. But I could not keep my eyes

away from her. The merchants, no doubt, enjoyed their dinner. They

laughed and argued boisterously, but at the two other tables there was

very little said.

The waiters, pattering over the stone floor in their bare feet, made

more noise than our entire mess.

When the brandy came, Russell nodded at the others, and they filled

their glasses and drank to me in silence. At the other table I saw the

same pantomime, only on account of old man Fiske they had to act even

more covertly. It struck me as being vastly absurd and wicked. What

right had young Fiske to put his life in jeopardy to me? It was not in

my keeping. I had no claim upon it. It was not in his own keeping. At

least not to throw away.

When they had gone and our officers had shaken hands with me and ridden

off to their different posts, I went out upon the balcony by myself and

sat down in the shadow of the vines. The stream which cuts Tegucigalpa

in two ran directly below the hotel, splashing against the rocks and

sweeping under the stone bridge with a ceaseless murmur. Beyond it

stretched the red-tiled roofs, glowing pink in the moonlight, and beyond

them the camp-fires of Alvarez twinkling like glow-worms against the

dark background of the hills. The town had gone to sleep, and the hotel

was as silent as a church. There was no sound except the whistle of a

policeman calling the hour, the bark of the street-dogs in answer, and

the voice of one of our sentries, arguing with some jovial gentleman who

was abroad without a pass. After the fever and anxieties of the last few

days the peace of the moment was sweet and grateful to me, and I sank

deeper into the long wicker chair and sighed with content. The previous

night I had spent on provost duty in the saddle, and it must have been

that I dropped asleep, for when I next raised my head Miss Fiske was

standing not twenty feet from me. She was leaning against one of the

pillars, a cold and stately statue in the moonlight.

She did not know anyone was near her, and when I moved and my spurs

clanked on the stones, she started, and turned her eyes slowly toward

the shadow in which I sat.

During dinner they must have told her which one of us was to fight the

duel, for when she recognized me she moved sharply away. I did not wish

her to think I would intrude on her against her will, so I rose and

walked toward the door, but before I had reached it she again turned and

approached me.

“You are Captain Macklin?” she said.

I was so excited at the thought that she was about to speak to me, and

so happy to hear her voice, that for an instant I could only whip off my

hat and gaze at her stupidly.

“Captain Macklin,” she repeated. “This afternoon I tried to stop the

duel you are to fight with my brother, and I am told that I made a very

serious blunder. I should like to try and correct it. When I spoke of

my brother’s skill, I mean his skill with the pistol, I knew you were

ignorant of it and I thought if you did know of it you would see the

utter folly, the wickedness of this duel. But instead I am told that I

only made it difficult for you not to meet him. I cannot in the least

see that that follows. I wish to make it clear to you that it does not.”

She paused, and I, as though I had been speaking, drew a long breath.

Had she been reading from a book her tone could not have been more

impersonal. I might have been one of a class of school-boys to whom she

was expounding a problem. At the Point I have heard officers’ wives use

the same tone to the enlisted men. Its effect on them was to drive them

into a surly silence.

But Miss Fiske did not seem conscious of her tone.

“After I had spoken,” she went on evenly, “they told me of your

reputation in this country, that you are known to be quite fearless.

They told me of your ordering your own men to shoot you, and of how you

took a cannon with your hands. Well, I cannot see--since your reputation

for bravery is so well established--that you need to prove it further,

certainly not by engaging in a silly duel. You cannot add to it by

fighting my brother, and if you should injure him, you would bring cruel

distress to--to others.”

“I assure you---” I began.

“Pardon me,” she said, raising her hand, but still speaking in the same

even tone. “Let me explain myself fully. Your own friends said in my

hearing,” she went on, “that they did not desire a fight. It is then my

remark only which apparently makes it inevitable.”

She drew herself up and her tone grew even more distant and disdainful.

“Now, it is not possible,” she exclaimed, “that you and your friends are

going to take advantage of my mistake, and make it the excuse for this

meeting. Suppose any harm should come to my brother.” For the first time

her voice carried a touch of feeling. “It would be my fault. I would

always have myself to blame. And I want to ask you not to fight him. I

want to ask you to withdraw from this altogether.”

I was completely confused. Never before had a young lady of a class

which I had so seldom met, spoken to me even in the words of everyday

civility, and now this one, who was the most wonderful and beautiful

woman I had ever seen, was asking me to grant an impossible favor, was

speaking of my reputation for bravery as though it were a fact which

everyone accepted, and was begging me not to make her suffer. What added

to my perplexity was that she asked me to act only as I desired to act,

but she asked it in such a manner that every nerve in me rebelled.

I could not understand how she could ask so great a favor of one she

held in such evident contempt. It seemed to me that she should not have

addressed me at all, or if she did ask me to stultify my honor and spare

the life of her precious brother she should not have done so in the same

tone with which she would have asked a tradesman for his bill. The

fact that I knew, since I meant to fire in the air, that the duel was a

farce, made it still more difficult for me to speak.

But I managed to say that what she asked was impossible.

“I do not know,” I stammered, “that I ought to talk about it to you at

all. But you don’t understand that your brother did not only insult me.

He insulted my regiment, and my general. It was that I resented, and

that is why I am fighting.”

“Then you refuse?” she said.

“I have no choice,” I replied; “he has left me no choice.”

She drew back, but still stood looking at me coldly. The dislike in her

eyes wounded me inexpressively.

Before she spoke I had longed only for the chance to assure her of my

regard, and had she appealed to me generously, in a manner suited to

one so noble-looking, I was in a state of mind to swim rivers and climb

mountains to serve her. I still would have fought the duel, but sooner

than harm her brother I would have put my hand in the fire. Now, since

she had spoken, I was filled only with pity and disappointment. It

seemed so wrong that one so finely bred and wonderfully fair should feel

so little consideration. No matter how greatly she had been prejudiced

against me she had no cause to ignore my rights in the matter. To speak

to me as though I had no honor of my own, no worthy motive, to treat me

like a common brawler who, because his vanity was wounded, was trying to

force an unoffending stranger to a fight.

My vanity was wounded, but I felt more sorry for her than for myself,

and when she spoke again I listened eagerly, hoping she would say

something which would soften what had gone before. But she did not make

it easier for either of us.

“If I persuade my brother to apologize for what he said of your

regiment,” she continued, “will you accept his apology?” Her tone was

one partly of interrogation, partly of command. “I do not think he is

likely to do so,” she added, “but if you will let that suffice, I shall

see him at once, and ask him.”

“You need not do that!” I replied, quickly. “As I have said, it is not

my affair. It concerns my--a great many people. I am sorry, but the

meeting must take place.”

For the first time Miss Fiske smiled, but it was the same smile of

amusement with which she had regarded us when she first saw us in the

plaza.

“I quite understand,” she said, still smiling. “You need not assure me

that it concerns a great many people.” She turned away as though the

interview was at an end, and then halted. She had stepped into the

circle of the moonlight so that her beauty shone full upon me.

“I know that it concerns a great many people,” she cried. “I know that

it is all a part of the plot against my father!”

I gave a gasp of consternation which she misconstrued, for she

continued, bitterly.

“Oh, I know everything,” she said. “Mr. Graham has told me all that you

mean to do. I was foolish to appeal to any one of you. You have set out

to fight my father, and your friends will use any means to win. But I

should have thought,” she cried, her voice rising and ringing like an

alarm, “that they would have stopped at assassinating his son.”