I could have jumped out of the hammock at that, but when I tried to do
so I found I could hardly raise my body. But I had gained the coast. I
knew I would find strength enough to leave it.
“Where are my friends?” I asked. “Where are the Gringoes?”
But she raised her hands, and threw them wide apart.
“They have gone,” she said, “three, four days from now, they sailed away
in the white ship. There was a great fighting,” she said, raising her
eyes and shaking her head, “and they carried you here, and told me to
hide you. You have been very ill, and you are still very ill.” She gave
a little exclamation and disappeared, and returned at once with a piece
of folded paper. “For you,” she said.
On the outside of the paper was written in Spanish: “This paper will
be found on the body of Royal Macklin. Let the priest bury him and send
word to the Military Academy, West Point, U. S. A., asking that his
family be informed of his place of burial. They will reward you well.”
Inside, in English, was the following letter in Aiken’s handwriting:
“DEAR OLD MAN--We had to drop you here, as we were too sick to carry
you any farther. They jumped us at San Lorenzo, and when we found we
couldn’t get to Amapala from here, we decided to scatter, and let each
man take care of himself. Von Ritter and I, and two of the boys, are
taking Laguerre with us. He is still alive, but very bad. We hope to
pick up a fishing-boat outside of town, and make for the Raleigh. We
tried to carry you, too, but it wasn’t possible. We had to desert one
of you, so we stuck by the old man. We hid your revolver and money-belt
under the seventh palm, on the beach to the right of this shack. If
I’d known you had twenty double eagles on you all this time, I’d have
cracked your skull myself. The crack you’ve got is healing, and if you
pull through the fever you’ll be all right. If you do, give this woman
twenty pesos I borrowed from her. Get her to hire a boat, and men,
and row it to Amapala. This island is only fifteen miles out, and the
Pacific Mail boat touches there Thursdays and Sundays. If you leave here
the night before, you can make it. Whatever you do, don’t go into the
village here or land at Amapala. If they catch you on shore they will
surely shoot you. So board the steamer in the offing. Hoping you will
live to read this, and that we may meet again under more agreeable
circumstances, I am,
“Yours truly,
“HERBERT AIKEN.”
“P.S. I have your gilt sword, and I’m going to turn it over to the
officers of the Raleigh, to take back to your folks. Good luck to you,
old man.”
After reading this letter, which I have preserved carefully as a
characteristic souvenir of Aiken, I had but two anxieties. The first
was to learn if Laguerre and the others had reached the Raleigh, and the
second was how could I escape to the steamer--the first question was at
once answered by the woman. She told me it was known in San Lorenzo that
the late “Presidente Generale,” with three Gringoes, had reached the
American war-ship and had been received on board. The Commandante of
Amapala had demanded their surrender to him, but the captain of the
ship had declared that as political refugees, they were entitled to the
protection they claimed, and when three days later he had been ordered
to return to San Francisco, he had taken them with him.
When I heard that, I gave a cheer all by myself, and I felt so much
better for the news that I at once began to plot for my own departure.
The day was Wednesday, the day before the steamer left Amapala, and I
determined to start for the island the following evening. When I told
the woman this, she protested I was much too weak to move, but the risk
that my hiding-place might be discovered before another steamer-day
arrived was much too great, and I insisted on making a try for the first
one.
The woman accordingly procured a fishing-boat and a crew of three men,
and I dug up my money-belt, and my revolver, and thanked her and paid
her, for Aiken and for myself, as well as one can pay a person for
saving one’s life. The next night, as soon as the sun set, I seated
myself in the stern of the boat, and we pushed out from the shore of
Honduras, and were soon rising and falling on the broad swell of the
Pacific.
My crew were simple fishermen, unconcerned with politics, and as I
had no fear of harm from them, I curled up on a mat at their feet and
instantly fell asleep.
When I again awoke the sun was well up, and when I raised my head the
boatman pointed to a fringe of palms that hung above the water, and
which he told me rose from the Island of Amapala. Two hours later we
made out the wharves and the custom-house of the port itself, and, lying
well toward us in the harbor, a big steamer with the smoke issuing from
her stacks, and the American flag hanging at the stern. I was still weak
and shaky, and I must confess that I choked a bit at the sight of the
flag, and at the thought that, in spite of all, I was going safely back
to life, and Beatrice and Aunt Mary. The name I made out on the stern of
the steamer was Barracouta, and I considered it the prettiest name I
had ever known, and the steamer the handsomest ship that ever sailed the
sea. I loved her from her keel to her topmast. I loved her every line
and curve, her every rope and bolt. But specially did I love the flag
at her stern and the blue Peter at the fore. They meant home. They meant
peace, friends, and my own countrymen.
I gave the boatmen a double eagle, and we all shook hands with great
glee, and then with new strength and unassisted I pulled myself up the
companion-ladder, and stood upon the deck.
When I reached it I wanted to embrace the first man I saw. I somehow
expected that he would want to embrace me, too, and say how glad he was
I had escaped. But he happened to be the ship’s purser, and, instead of
embracing me, he told me coldly that steerage passengers are not allowed
aft. But I did not mind, I knew that I was a disreputable object, but
I also knew that I had gold in my money-belt, and that clothes could be
bought from the slop-chest.
So I said in great good-humor, that I wanted a first-class cabin, the
immediate use of the bathroom, and the services of the ship’s barber.
My head was bound in a dirty bandage. My uniform, which I still wore
as I had nothing else, was in rags from the briers, and the mud of the
swamps and the sweat of the fever had caked it with dirt. I had an eight
days’ beard, and my bare feet were in native sandals. So my feelings
were not greatly hurt because the purser was not as genuinely glad to
see me as I was to see him.
“A first-class passage costs forty dollars gold--in advance,” he said.
“That’s all right,” I answered, and I laughed from sheer, foolish
happiness, “I’ll take six.”
We had been standing at the head of the companion-ladder, and as the
purser moved rather reluctantly toward his cabin, a group of men came
down the deck toward us.
One of them was a fat, red-faced American, the others wore the uniform
of Alvarez. When they saw me they gave little squeals of excitement, and
fell upon the fat man gesticulating violently, and pointing angrily at
me.
The purser halted, and if it were possible, regarded me with even
greater unfriendliness. As for myself, the sight of the brown, impish
faces, and the familiar uniforms filled me with disgust. I had thought
I was done with brawling and fighting, of being hated and hunted. I
had had my fill of it. I wanted to be let alone, I wanted to feel that
everybody about me was a friend. I was not in the least alarmed, for now
that I was under the Stars and Stripes, I knew that I was immune from
capture, but the mere possibility of a row was intolerable.
One of the Honduranians wore the uniform of a colonel, and was, as
I guessed, the Commandante of the port. He spoke to the fat man in
English, but in the same breath turned to one of his lieutenants, and
gave an order in Spanish.
The lieutenant started in my direction, and then hesitated and beckoned
to some one behind me.
I heard a patter of bare feet on the deck, and a dozen soldiers ran past
me, and surrounded us. I noticed that they and their officers belonged
to the Eleventh Infantry. It was the regiment I had driven out of the
barracks at Santa Barbara.
The fat American in his shirt-sleeves was listening to what the
Commandante was saying, and apparently with great dissatisfaction. As
he listened he scowled at me, chewing savagely on an unlit cigar, and
rocking himself to and fro on his heels and toes. His thumbs were stuck
in his suspenders, so that it looked as though, with great indecision he
was pulling himself forward and back.
I turned to the purser and said, as carelessly as I could: “Well, what
are we waiting for?”
But he only shook his head.
With a gesture of impatience the fat man turned suddenly from the
Commandante and came toward me.
He spoke abruptly and with the tone of a man holding authority.
“Have you got your police-permit to leave Amapala?” he demanded.
“No,” I answered.
“Well, why haven’t you?” he snapped.
“I didn’t know I had to have one,” I said. “Why do you ask?” I added.
“Are you the captain of this ship?”
“I think I am,” he suddenly roared, as though I had questioned his
word. “Anyway, I’ve got enough say on her to put you ashore if you don’t
answer my questions.”
I shut my lips together and looked away from him. His tone stirred what
little blood there was still left in me to rebellion; but when I saw the
shore with its swamps and ragged palms, I felt how perilously near it
was, and Panama became suddenly a distant mirage. I was as helpless as a
sailor clinging to a plank. I felt I was in no position to take offence,
so I bit my lips and tried to smile.
The Captain shook his head at me, as though I were a prisoner in the
dock.
“Do you mean to say,” he shouted, “that our agent sold you a ticket
without you showing a police-permit?”
“I haven’t got a ticket,” I said. “I was just going to buy one now.”
The Commandante thrust himself between us.
“Ah, what did I tell you?” he cried. “You see? He is escaping. This is
the man. He answers all the descriptions. He was dressed just so; green
coat, red trousers, very torn and dirty--head in bandage. This is the
description. Is it not so?” he demanded of his lieutenants. They nodded
vigorously.
“Why--a-yes, that is the man,” the Commandante cried in triumph. “Last
night he stabbed Jose Mendez in the Libertad Billiard Hall. He has
wanted to murder him. If Jose, he die, this man he is murderer. He
cannot go. He must come to land with me.”
He gave an order in Spanish, and the soldiers closed in around us.
I saw that I was in great peril, in danger more real than any I had
faced in open fight since I had entered Honduras. For the men who had
met me then had fought with fair weapons. These men were trying to take
away my life with a trick, with cunning lies and false witnesses.
They knew the Captain might not surrender a passenger who was only a
political offender, but that he could not harbor a criminal. And at the
first glance at my uniform, and when he knew nothing more of me than
that I wore it, the Commandante had trumped up this charge of crime, and
had fitted to my appearance the imaginary description of an imaginary
murderer. And I knew that he did this that he might send me, bound hand
and foot, as a gift to Alvarez, or that he might, for his own vengeance,
shoot me against a wall.
I knew how little I would receive of either justice or mercy. I had
heard of Dr. Rojas killed between decks on a steamer of this same line;
of Bonilla taken from the Ariadne and murdered on this very wharf at
this very port of Amapala; of General Pulido strangled in the launch
of the Commandante of Corinto and thrown overboard, while still in the
sight of his fellow-passengers on the Southern Cross.
It was a degraded, horrible, inglorious end--to be caught by the heels
after the real battle was lost; to die of fever in a cell; to be stabbed
with bayonets on the wharf, and thrown to the carrion harbor-sharks.
I swung around upon the Captain, and fought for my life as desperately
as though I had a rope around my neck.
“That man is a liar,” I cried. “I was not in Amapala last night. I came
from San Lorenzo--this morning. The boat is alongside now; you can ask
the men who brought me. I’m no murderer. That man knows I’m no murderer.
He wants me because I belonged to the opposition government. It’s
because I wear this uniform he wants me. I’m no criminal. He has no more
right to touch me here, than he would if I were on Broadway.”
The Commandante seized the Captain’s arm.
“As Commandante of this port,” he screamed, “I tell you if you do not
surrender the murderer to me, your ship shall not sail. I will take back
your clearance-papers.”
The Captain turned on me, shaking his red fists, and tossing his head
like a bull. “You see that!” he cried. “You see what you get me into,
coming on board my ship without a permit! That’s what I get at every
banana-patch along this coast, a lot of damned beach-combers and
stowaways stealing on board, and the Commandante chasing ‘em all over my
ship and holding up my papers. You go ashore!” he ordered. He swept his
arm toward the gangway. “You go to Kessler, our consul. If you haven’t
done nothing wrong, he’ll take care of you. You haven’t got a ticket,
and you haven’t got a permit, and you’re no passenger of mine! Over you
go; do you hear me? Quick now, over you go.”
I could not believe that I heard the man aright. He seemed to be talking
a language I did not know.
“Do you mean to tell me,” I cried, speaking very slowly, for I was
incredulous, and I was so weak besides that it was difficult for me to
find the words, “that you refuse to protect me from these half-breeds,
that you are going to turn me over to them--to be shot! And you call
yourself an American?” I cried, “and this an American ship!”
As I turned from him I found that the passengers had come forward and
now surrounded us; big, tall men in cool, clean linen, and beautiful
women, shading their eyes with their fans, and little children crowding
in between them and clinging to their skirts. To my famished eyes they
looked like angels out of Paradise. They were my own people, and they
brought back to me how I loved the life these men were plotting to take
from me. The sight of them drove me into a sort of frenzy.
“Are you going to take that man’s word against mine?” I cried at the
Captain. “Are you going to let him murder me in sight of that flag? You
know he’ll do it. You know what they did to Rojas on one of your own
ships. Do you want another man butchered in sight of your passengers?”
The Commandante crowded in front of the ship’s captain.
“That man is my prisoner,” he cried. “He is going to jail, to be tried
by law. He shall see his consul every day. And so, if you try to leave
this harbor with him, I will sink your ship from the fort!”
The Captain turned with an oath and looked up to the second officer, who
was leaning over the rail of the bridge above us.
“Up anchor,” the Captain shouted. “Get her under weigh! There is your
answer,” he cried, turning upon me. “I’m not going to have this ship
held up any longer, and I’m not going to risk the lives of these ladies
and gentlemen by any bombardment, either. You’re only going to jail.
I’ll report the matter to our consul at Corinto, and he’ll tell our
minister.”
“Corinto!” I replied. “I’ll be dead before you’ve passed that
lighthouse.”
The Captain roared with anger.
“Can’t you hear what he says,” he shouted. “He says he’ll fire on my
ship. They’ve fired on our ships before! I’m not here to protect every
damned scalawag that tries to stowaway on my ship. I’m here to protect
the owners, and I mean to do it. Now you get down that ladder, before we
throw you down.”
I knew his words were final. From the bow I heard the creak of the
anchor-chains as they were drawn on board, and from the engine-room the
tinkle of bells.
The ship was abandoning me. My last appeal had failed. My condition was
desperate.
“Protect your owners, and yourself, damn you!” I cried. “You’re no
American. You’re no white man. No American would let a conch-nigger run
his ship. To hell with your protection!”
All the misery of the last two months, the bitterness of my dismissal
from the Point, the ignominy of our defeat and flight, rose in me and
drove me on. “And I don’t want the protection of that flag either,” I
cried. “I wasn’t good enough to serve it once, and I don’t need it now.”
It should be remembered that when I spoke these words I thought my death
was inevitable and immediate, that it had been brought upon me by one of
my own countrymen, while others of my countrymen stood indifferently by,
and I hope that for what I said in that moment of fever and despair I
may be forgiven.
“I can protect myself!” I cried.
Before anyone could move I whipped out my gun and held it over the
Commandante’s heart, and at the same instant without turning my eyes
from his face I waved my other hand at the passengers. “Take those
children away,” I shouted.
“Don’t move!” I yelled in Spanish at the soldiers. “If one of you raises
his musket I’ll kill him.” I pressed the cocked revolver against the
Commandante’s chest. “Now, then, take me ashore,” I called to his men.
“You know me, I’m Captain Macklin. Captain Macklin, of the Foreign
Legion, and you know that six of you will die before you get me. Come
on,” I taunted. “Which six is it to be?”
Out of the corners of my eyes I could see the bayonets lifting
cautiously and forming a ring of points about me, and the sight, and my
own words lashed me into a frenzy of bravado.
“Oh, you don’t remember me, don’t you?” I cried. “You ought to remember
the Foreign Legion! We drove you out of Santa Barbara and Tabla Ve
and Comyagua, and I’m your Vice-President! Take off your hats to your
Vice-President! To Captain Macklin, Vice-President of Honduras!”
{Illustration: I sprang back against the cabin}
I sprang back against the cabin and swung the gun in swift half-circles.
The men shrank from it as though I had lashed them with a whip. “Come
on,” I cried, “which six is it to be? Come on, you cowards, why don’t
you take me!”
The only answer came from a voice that was suddenly uplifted at my side.
I recognized it as the voice of the ship’s captain.
“Put down that gun!” he shouted.
But I only swung it the further until it covered him also. The man stood
in terror of his ship’s owners, he had a seaman’s dread of international
law, but he certainly was not afraid of a gun. He regarded it no more
than a pointed finger, and leaned eagerly toward me. To my amazement I
saw that his face was beaming with excitement and delight.
“Are you Captain Macklin?” he cried.
I was so amazed that for a moment I could only gape at him while I still
covered him with the revolver.
“Yes,” I answered.
“Then why in hell didn’t you say so!” he roared, and with a bellow
like a bull he threw himself upon the Commandante. He seized him by
his epaulettes and pushed him backward. With the strength of a bull he
butted and shoved him across the deck.
“Off my ship you!” he roared. “Every one of you; you’re a gang of
murdering cutthroats.”
The deck-hands and the ship-stewards, who had gathered at the gangway to
assist in throwing me down it, sprang to the Captain’s aid.
“Over with him, boys,” he roared. “Clear the ship of them. Throw them
overboard.” The crew fell upon the astonished soldiers, and drove
them to the side. Their curses and shrieks filled the air, the women
retreated screaming, and I was left alone, leaning limply against the
cabin with my revolver hanging from my fingers.
It began and ended in an instant, and as the ship moved forward and
the last red-breeched soldier disappeared headforemost down the
companion-ladder, the Captain rushed back to me and clutched me by both
shoulders. Had it not been for the genial grin on his fat face, I would
have thought that he meant to hurl me after the others.
“Now then, Captain Macklin,” he cried, “you come with me. You come to my
cabin, and that’s where you stay as long as you are on my ship. You’re
no passenger, you’re my guest, and there’s nothing on board too good for
you.”
“But I don’t--understand,” I protested faintly. “What does it mean?”
“What does it mean?” he shouted. “It means you’re the right sort for me!
I haven’t heard of nothing but your goings-on for the last three trips.
Vice-President of Honduras!” he exclaimed, shaking me as though I were a
carpet. “A kid like you! You come to my cabin and tell me the whole
yarn from start to finish. I’d rather carry you than old man Huntington
himself!”
The passengers had returned, and stood listening to his exclamations, in
a wondering circle. The stewards and deck-hands, panting with their late
exertions, were grinning at me with unmistakable interest.
“Bring Captain Macklin’s breakfast to my cabin, you,” he shouted to
them. “And, Mr. Owen,” he continued, addressing the Purser, with great
impressiveness, “this is Captain Macklin, himself. He’s going with us as
my guest.”
With a wink, he cautiously removed my revolver from my fingers, and
slapped me jovially on the shoulder. “Son!” he exclaimed, “I wouldn’t
have missed the sight of you holding your gun on that gang for a cargo
of bullion. I suspicioned it was you, the moment you did it. That will
be something for me to tell them in ‘Frisco, that will. Now, you come
along,” he added, suddenly, with parental solicitude, “and take a cup of
coffee, and a dose of quinine, or you’ll be ailing.”
He pushed a way for me through the crowd of passengers, who fell back in
two long lines. As we moved between them, I heard a woman’s voice ask,
in a loud whisper:
“Who did you say?”
A man’s voice answered, “Why, Captain Macklin,” and then protested, in a
rising accent, “Now, for Heaven’s sake, Jennie, don’t tell me you don’t
know who he is?”
That was my first taste of fame. It was a short-lived, limited sort of
fame, but at that time it stretched throughout all Central America. I
doubt if it is sufficiently robust to live in the cold latitudes of
the North. It is just an exotic of the tropics. I am sure it will never
weather Cape Hatteras. But although I won’t amount to much in Dobbs
Ferry, down here in Central America I am pretty well known, and during
these last two months that I have been lying, very near to death, in the
Canal Company’s hospital, my poor little fame stuck by me, and turned
strangers into kind and generous friends.