“Pardon me, sir,” Lowell answered, earnestly, addressing himself to
Laguerre, “but I should think you would. Why,” he exclaimed, “every
merchant in the city has told me he considers his interests have never
been so secure as since you became president. It is only the Isthmian
Line that wants the protection of our ship. The foreign merchants are
not afraid. I hate it!” he cried, “I hate to think that a billionaire,
with a pull at Washington, can turn our Jackies into Janissaries.
Protect American interests!” he exclaimed, indignantly, “protect
American sharpers! The Isthmian Line has no more right to the protection
of our Navy than have the debtors in Ludlow Street Jail.”
Laguerre sat for a long time without replying, and then rose and bowed
to Lowell with great courtesy.
“I must be returning,” he said. “I thank you, sir, for your good
opinion. At my earliest convenience I shall pay my respects to your
commanding officer. At ten o’clock,” he continued turning to me, “I am
to have my talk with Mr. Fiske. I have not the least doubt but that
he will see the justice of our claim against his company, and before
evening I am sure I shall be able to announce throughout the republic
that I have his guaranty for the money. Mr. Fiske is an able, upright
business man, as well as a gentleman, and he will not see this country
robbed.”
He shook hands with us and we escorted him to his horse.
I always like to remember him as I saw him then, in that gorgeous
uniform, riding away under the great palms of the Plaza, with the
tropical sunshine touching his white hair, and flashing upon the sabres
of the body-guard, and the people running from every side of the square
to cheer him.
Two hours later, when I had finished my “paper” work and was setting
forth on my daily round, Miller came galloping up to the barracks and
flung himself out of the saddle. He nodded to Lowell, and pulled me
roughly to one side.
“The talk with Fiske,” he whispered, “ended in the deuce of a row. Fiske
behaved like a mule. He told Laguerre that the original charter of the
company had been tampered with, and that the one Laguerre submitted to
him was a fake copy. And he ended by asking Laguerre to name his price
to leave them alone.”
“And Laguerre?”
“Well, what do you suppose,” Miller returned, scornfully. “The General
just looked at him, and then picked up a pen, and began to write, and
said to the orderly, ‘Show him out.’
“‘What’s that?’ Fiske said. And Laguerre answered: ‘Merely a figure of
speech; what I really meant was “Put him out,” or “throw him out!” You
are an offensive and foolish old man. I, the President of this country,
received you and conferred with you as one gentleman with another, and
you tried to insult me. You are either extremely ignorant, or extremely
dishonest, and I shall treat with you no longer. Instead, I shall at
once seize every piece of property belonging to your company, and hold
it until you pay your debts. Now you go, and congratulate yourself that
when you tried to insult me, you did so when you were under my roof, at
my invitation.’ Then Laguerre wired the commandantes at all the seaports
to seize the warehouses and officers of the Isthmian Line, and even
its ships, and to occupy the buildings with troops. He means business,”
Miller cried, jubilantly. “This time it’s a fight to a finish.”
Lowell had already sent for his horse, and altogether we started at a
gallop for the palace. At the office of the Isthmian Line we were
halted by a crowd so great that it blocked the street. The doors of the
building were barred, and two sentries were standing guard in front
of it. A proclamation on the wall announced that, by order of the
President, the entire plant of the Isthmian Line had been confiscated,
and that unless within two weeks the company paid its debts to the
government, the government would sell the property of the company until
it had obtained the money due it.
At the entrance to the palace the sergeant in charge of the native
guard, who was one of our men, told us that two ships of the Isthmian
Line had been caught in port; one at Cortez on her way to Aspinwall, and
one at Truxillo, bound north. The passengers had been landed, and were
to remain on shore as guests of the government until they could be
transferred to another line.
Lowell’s face as he heard this was very grave, and he shook his head.
“A perfectly just reprisal, if you ask me,” he said, “but what one
lonely ensign tells you in confidence, and what Fiske will tell the
State Department at Washington, is a very different matter. It’s a good
thing,” he exclaimed, with a laugh, “that the Raleigh’s on the wrong
side of the Isthmus. If we were in the Caribbean, they might order us to
make you give back those ships. As it is, we can’t get marines here
from the Pacific under three days. So I’d better start them at once,” he
added, suddenly. “Good-by, I must wire the Captain.”
“Don’t let the United States Navy do anything reckless,” I said. “I’m
not so sure you could take those ships, and I’m not so sure your marines
can get here in three days, either, or that they ever could get here.”
Lowell gave a shout of derision.
“What,” he cried, “you’d fight against your country’s flag?”
I told him he must not forget that at West Point they had decided I was
not good enough to fight for my country’s flag.
“We’ve three ships of our own now,” I added, with a grin. “How would you
like to be Rear Admiral of the naval forces of Honduras?”
Lowell caught up his reins in mock terror.
“What!” he cried. “You’d dare to bribe an American officer? And with
such a fat bribe, too?” he exclaimed. “A Rear-Admiral at my age! That’s
dangerously near my price. I’m afraid to listen to you. Good-by.” He
waved his hand and started down the street. “Good-by, Satan,” he called
back to me, and I laughed, and he rode away.
That was the end of the laughter, of the jests, of the play-acting.
After that it was grim, grim, bitter and miserable. We dogs had had our
day. We soldiers of either fortune had tasted our cup of triumph, and
though it was only a taste, it had flown to our brains like heavy wine,
and the headaches and the heartaches followed fast. For some it was more
than a heartache; to them it brought the deep, drugged sleep of Nirvana.
The storm broke at the moment I turned from Lowell on the steps of the
palace, and it did not cease, for even one brief breathing space, until
we were cast forth, and scattered, and beaten.
As Lowell left me, General Laguerre, with Aiken at his side, came
hurrying down the hall of the palace. The President was walking with
his head bowed, listening to Aiken, who was whispering and gesticulating
vehemently. I had never seen him so greatly excited. When he caught
sight of me he ran forward.
“Here he is,” he cried. “Have you heard from Heinze?” he demanded. “Has
he asked you to send him a native regiment to Pecachua?”
“Yes,” I answered, “he wanted natives to dig trenches. I sent five
hundred at eight this morning.”
Aiken clenched his fingers. It was like the quick, desperate clutch of a
drowning man.
“I’m right,” he cried. He turned upon Laguerre. “Macklin has sent them.
By this time our men are prisoners.”
Laguerre glanced sharply at the native guard drawn up at attention on
either side of us. “Hush,” he said. He ran past us down the steps, and
halting when he reached the street, turned and looked up at the
great bulk of El Pecachua that rose in the fierce sunlight, calm and
inscrutable, against the white, glaring masses of the clouds.
“What is it?” I whispered.
“Heinze!” Aiken answered, savagely. “Heinze has sold them Pecachua.”
I cried out, but again Laguerre commanded silence. “You do not know
that,” he said; but his voice trembled, and his face was drawn in lines
of deep concern.
“I warned you!” Aiken cried, roughly. “I warned you yesterday; I told
you to send Macklin to Pecachua.”
He turned on me and held me by the sleeve, but like Laguerre he still
continued to look fearfully toward the mountain.
“They came to me last night, Graham came to me,” he whispered. “He
offered me ten thousand dollars gold, and I did not take it.” In his
wonder at his own integrity, in spite of the excitement which shook
him, Aiken’s face for an instant lit with a weak, gratified smile. “I
pretended to consider it,” he went on, “and sent another of my men to
Pecachua. He came back an hour ago. He tells me Graham offered Heinze
twenty thousand dollars to buy off himself and the other officers and
the men. But Heinze was afraid of the others, and so he planned to ask
Laguerre for a native regiment, to pretend that he wanted them to work
on the trenches. And then, when our men were lying about, suspecting
nothing, the natives should fall on them and tie them, or shoot them,
and then turn the guns on the city. And he _has_ sent for the niggars!”
Aiken cried. “And there’s not one of them that wouldn’t sell you out.
They’re there now!” he cried, shaking his hand at the mountain. “I
warned you! I warned you!”
Incredible as it seemed, difficult as it was to believe such baseness, I
felt convinced that Aiken spoke the truth. The thought sickened me, but
I stepped over to Laguerre and saluted.
“I can assemble the men in half an hour,” I said. “We can reach the base
of the rock an hour later.”
“But if it should not be true,” Laguerre protested. “The insult to
Heinze--”
“Heinze!” Aiken shouted, and broke into a volley of curses. But the
oaths died in his throat. We heard a whirr of galloping hoofs; a man’s
voice shrieking to his horse; the sounds of many people running, and one
of my scouts swept into the street, and raced toward us. He fell off at
our feet, and the pony rolled upon its head, its flanks heaving horribly
and the blood spurting from its nostrils.
“Garcia and Alvarez!” the man panted. “They’re making for the city.
They tried to fool us. They left their tents up, and fires burning, and
started at night, but I smelt ‘em the moment they struck the trail. We
fellows have been on their flanks since sun-up, picking ‘em off at long
range, but we can’t hold them. They’ll be here in two hours.”
“Now, will you believe me?” Aiken shouted. “That’s their plot. They’re
working together. They mean to trap us on every side. Ah!” he cried.
“Look!”
I knew the thing at which he wished me to look. His voice and my dread
told me at what his arm was pointing.
I raised my eyes fearfully to El Pecachua. From its green crest a puff
of smoke was swelling into a white cloud, the cloud was split with a
flash of flame, and the dull echo of the report drifted toward us on
the hot, motionless air. At the same instant our flag on the crest of
Pecachua, the flag with the five-pointed, blood-red star, came twitching
down; and a shell screeched and broke above us.
Now that he knew the worst, the doubt and concern on the face of General
Laguerre fell from it like a mask.
“We have no guns that will reach the mountain, have we?” he asked. He
spoke as calmly as though we were changing guard.
“No, not one,” I answered. “All our heavy pieces are on Pecachua.”
“Then we must take it by assault,” he said. “We will first drive Garcia
back, and then we will storm the hill, or starve them out. Assemble all
the men at the palace at once. Trust to no one but yourself. Ride to
every outpost and order them here. Send Von Ritter and the gatlings to
meet Alvarez. This man will act as his guide.”
He turned to the scout. “You will find my horse in the court-yard of the
palace,” he said to him. “Take it, and accompany Captain Macklin. Tell
Von Ritter,” he continued, turning to me, “not to expose his men, but
to harass the enemy, and hold him until I come.” His tone was easy,
confident, and assured. Even as I listened to his command I marvelled
at the rapidity with which his mind worked, how he rose to an unexpected
situation, and met unforeseen difficulties.
“That is all,” he said. “I will expect the men here in half an hour.”
He turned from me calmly. As he re-entered the palace between the lines
of the guard he saluted as punctiliously as though he were on his way to
luncheon.
But no one else shared in his calmness. The bursting shells had driven
the people from their houses, and they were screaming through the
streets, as though an earthquake had shaken the city. Even the palace
was in an uproar.
The scout, as he entered it, shouting for the President’s horse, had
told the story to our men, and they came running to the great doors,
fastening their accoutrements as they ran. Outside, even as Laguerre had
been speaking, the people had gathered in a great circle, whispering and
gesticulating, pointing at us, at the dying horse, at the shells that
swung above us, at the flag of Alvarez which floated from Pecachua.
When I spurred my horse forward, with the scout at my side, there was
a sullen silence. The smiles, the raised hats, the cheers were missing,
and I had but turned my back on them when a voice shouted, “Viva
Alvarez!”
I swung in my saddle, and pulled out my sword. I thought it was only the
bravado of some impudent fellow who needed a lesson.
But it was a signal, for as I turned I saw the native guard spring like
one man upon our sergeant and drive their bayonets into his throat. He
went down with a dozen of the dwarf-like negroes stabbing and kicking at
him, and the mob ran shrieking upon the door of the palace.
On the instant I forgot everything except Laguerre. I had only one
thought, to get to him, to place myself at his side.
I pushed my horse among the people, beating at the little beasts with my
sword. But the voice I knew best of all called my name from just above
my head, and I looked up and saw Laguerre with Aiken and Webster on the
iron balcony of the palace.
Laguerre’s face was white and set.
“Captain Macklin!” he cried. “What does this mean? Obey your orders. You
have my orders. Obey my orders.”
“I can’t,” I cried. “This is an attack upon you! They will kill you!”
At the moment I spoke our men fired a scattering volley at the mob, and
swung to the great gates. The mob answered their volley with a dozen
pistol-shots, and threw itself forward. Still looking up, I saw Laguerre
clasp his hands to his throat, and fall back upon Webster’s shoulder,
but he again instantly stood upright and motioned me fiercely with his
arm. “Go,” he cried. “Bring the gatlings here, and all the men. If you
delay we lose the palace. Obey my orders,” he again commanded, with a
second fierce gesture.
The movement was all but fatal. The wound in his throat tore apart, his
head fell forward and his eyes closed. I saw the blood spreading and
dyeing the gold braid. But he straightened himself and leaned forward.
His eyes opened, and, holding himself erect with one hand on the
railing of the balcony, he stretched the other over me, as though in
benediction.
“Go, Royal!” he cried, “and--God bless you!”