thought that we doubted him.
"I tell you again," he said, "that that other woman was nothing to me at
all, except a poor pitiful creature that I would have been a brute not
to help. I am speaking honestly as a man to his two friends--"
"Arthur," said Perez, "to me you need never justify, need never explain;
if you say so, that is all, the rest is wasted time."
"Here, too," says I.
It would stagger anybody to see how poor Saxton wanted us to believe
him. I began to see how he had poisoned his life. He looked at us very
thankfully, but tears came into his eyes. He tried to go on in the calm
way, but his throat was husky. Then he swore out free and felt better.
"To save time, I believe you in turn," he said. "Another of my tricks is
to wish to be believed in myself, and yet always doubt other people.
Well, I lost my grip; I cannot remember all I said to Mary, but I can
easily remember that it was all unpleasant. I simply improved on the
Almighty's handiwork by making a longer-eared jackass of myself than I
was intended to be, winding up as a masterstroke by attacking Belknap.
It was only two days before, Perez, that Orinez had told me the other
side of Belknap's Great Work; of how he was undoing all that you and
Orinez had done for the salvation of this unlucky country, by starting
up a revolution in order that a lot of poor devils might be killed for
his private benefit. I laid it on hard in my fury, and Mary told me to
leave. She said she didn't want to be a witness of my descending so low
as to attack an honorable man behind his back,--and then I came away.
The Lord knows I have no memory of that walk home; everything that was
bad in my blood came out. Honest, I fought--that is to say, I had lucid
intervals of an hour or so, but every day my sense wore blunt under the
grind of despair. It was a disease; it would come on me in waves like an
ague fit. I really suffered physically; I lost every bit of decency that
ever was in me; I became a God-forsaken, devil-ridden brute; a quart of
French brandy a day did me no especial good, and yet I loved the stuff
for the time. Well, the disease, like any disease, had to reach its
climax. It came when I started to strike you, Henry--that was the limit
of meanness for any living man. Then old Bill here took hold of me, and
squeezed what was left of the obsession out of me with the first hug of
his arms. For the expulsion of devils, I recommend your long flippers,
Bill, my boy....
"I am not going to apologize to you, Henry, nor to Bill. If I didn't
feel something more than any apology could make good, I wouldn't be
worth your trouble. But right here I shift."
We sat still. Seldom you see a man take out his soul: when that happens,
it is usually a kind of indecent exposure. A man must shake every
glimmer of vanity out.
Old Saxton stood out naked and unashamed like a statue. Nobody felt
embarrassed. I was too young to appreciate it fully, although I did in a
measure. I saw that all he wanted was to be honest. Not a word altered
to win either sympathy or approval for himself. I suppose that is the
way the woman he spoke of attracted him.
Perez spoke very gently and cautiously.
"This is all strange to me, Arthur," he said; "I am trying to
understand. You seem so strong, of the head so remarkably clear and
capable, that it is a difficulty to understand this trouble. I ask now,
if you put a restraint upon yourself, will not--pardon, you know I only
ask for good--"
Sax threw both arms in the air. "For God's sake, and for both our sakes,
Henry, don't quiddle with courtesy--slam out with it! I've lost all
right to consideration--you can only give me self-respect by showing you
believe me man enough to hear what you have to say."
That slow smile lit up Perez's eyes. "Quite right, Arthur," he said.
"'_Me he equivocado_'--this, then: If you restrain yourself, like the
volcano, will you not break out somewhere new?"
"Not so long as I keep my grip on facts: I'm safe when I can say, 'I'm
getting crazy again.' The saying restores my sanity. Having no one to
say it to, I run amuck."
"You have that friend," said Perez. He stopped a minute. "I would not
have you hold yourself, if that would do you harm, Arthur; but now I
say, take yourself in the hand strong, for of my life the bitterest time
was when you raised your arm at me."
Saxton's face jerked and then grew still. "Come, boys!" he said, rolling
a handful of cigars on the table. "Smoke."
I never saw any one who could get himself and friends in and out of
trouble like Saxton. In five minutes we were laughing and talking as
though nothing unusual had occurred. That's what I call strength of
mind. It wasn't that Sax couldn't feel if he let himself, Heaven knows.
It was that he could shut down so tight, when roused to it, that he
_wouldn't_ feel, nor you, neither.
At the same time there was a pity for him aching at the bottom of my
heart, and when Perez and I left him to walk home together a remark
Perez made started the Great Scheme into operation.
"The girl _must_ care for him," said Perez. "His erraticality! Bah! What
woman cares for that, so long that the strangeness is in the way of
feeling, and not in the way of non-feeling? Women desire that their
admirer shall be of some romance. And with that beautiful poet face; the
fine manner; the grace of body and of mind--that unusual beautiful which
is he and no other--you tell me that any woman shall see that lay at her
feet and not be moved? _Tonteria!_ I believe it not. When the story of
that other woman arrived to Senorita Maria's ear what is it she feel?
The religious abhorrence? The violation of taste? Perhaps, but much more
a thing she does not know herself, that monster of the green eye, called
Jealousy--believe me, Senor Saunders, the man who look sees more of the
play. It is so. Mees Mary may feel bad in many way, but when she will
listen to the explanation not at all, her worst feel bad is jealousy."
I don't want to lay claim for myself as a great student of mankind, yet
ideas to that effect had begun to peek around the corner of my skull. It
seemed to me that Mary felt altogether too _hot_ sorry and not enough
resigned sorry for it to be a case of friendly interest.
"I guess you're right, Mr. Perez," said I, "and if we could only get Sax
to bust through her ideas, as I busted through his to-day--"
"_Perfectamente!_" cried Perez, slapping me on the back. "It is the
same; obsession, Arthur called it. It is that and no other. This Belknap
has so played upon her mind that it is not her mind; it is a meexture of
some ideas she has, and what he wishes her to be. If she could have an
arm of that rude strength like your own--but," he shrugged his
shoulders, "it is a lady, and there is nothing."
"I'm not so darned sure about that," says I, little particles of a plan
slowly settling in the mud-puddle I call my mind. "I'm not so hunky-dory
positive.... If I could get holt of something against that cussed
Belknap,--something that would look bad to a woman,--I'd risk it."
Perez brightened right up. "You have something thought about?" he asked,
eager. "Do not go to the hotel to-night. Let me be your host--we are
right at the door--_Su casa_, Senor--let me offer my little
entertainment, and we shall to talk further--will you not let it be so?"
I liked Perez and I wanted to talk as much as he did. "Much obliged,"
says I; "I hate a hotel, anyhow." So in we went.
XII
BILL MEETS A RELATIVE
Perez had a fine house, a revelation to me; big halls, big rooms, the
walls covered with pictures, Injun relics, armor, swords, guns, and what
not; many servants to fetch and carry, and an ease and comfort over it
for which delicious is the only word.
We had a bully little dinner out in the cool garden, which I got through
all right by playing second to Perez. The finger-bowls had me off the
trail a little, but I waited and discovered their purpose. You can find
out everything if you wait long enough.
Then with coffee and cigars we began to talk.
"Now for the plan of Senor Saunders," says Perez, opening the bottom of
his well-supported vest. He looked so respectable and ordinary sitting
there, that my plan lost its light. I forgot the other side of him.
"Well," I begun, lamely, "Saxton wants to marry Mary."
Perez politely acknowledged that such was the fact.
"Then," says I, "why don't he just do it?"
Perez looked his disappointment.
"That would be well, surely," says he in the tone one uses to a harmless
fool.
"Here," says I. "First, I want to break into Mr. Belknap. You say he's
got some kind of political game on?"
Perez renewed his interest. "_Si_," says he. "This is what he makes. He
is now going to and fro, putting those that have come to his church
against those of the old religion. Against the Catholic Church he lays
the blame of everything wrong. It will be a revolution, he says, to
annihilate that enemy of man, the old church, and in its place put that
wonder of virtue, the church of Mr. Belknap. What _will_ happen is that
many poor men shall be killed, and the wolf-rascals get fat, as usual.
With Belknap are the few in earnest, who think; the many who neither
care nor think, but are led; those that fight for love of it; those who
are hypocrites, and those who look for profit. On our side, the same.
There is no advantage to either by comparison in that. In here comes the
difference. Such men as Orinez and myself know that this unhappy land
must have peace, before any notion of right can grow. When it is all
fight, fight, fight, one cannot think evenly--has your brother been
killed? Your wife and sisters murdered? And then you will think calmly
of the issue? Time is needed to heal these old wounds, that more can
work together. So Orinez and I fight for time--I with my money and my
counsel, he with the terror of his name. Once I did Orinez a favor; he
never forgets. So when I called to help me in this, the tiger sheathed
his claws; the man of blood turned shepherd; the robber, honest;
but,"--and here Perez's voice took a bitterness worse than curses,--"but
Mr. Belknap, that respected man of God, will have it that the need of
the State is the drawing of blood--once more, fire, slaughter, rape,
till the land stinks with corpses, lays black in the sunlight and rings
with the cries of injured women--a great work...."
Perez stood up, gripping the table. "I am a little, peaceful man," he
said, "but there are times when I could drive a knife through that man
and shout with joy for every blow." He sat down quickly and smiled a
faint smile. "_My_ obsession," said he, wiping his forehead; "I, too,
preach peace through the letting of blood. Belknap may be as much in
earnest as myself--Bah! This foolish pretense of candor! He is _not_; he
is a scoundrel--whether he knows it or not, a scoundrel."
"Well, that's good news," said I. "It won't be hard for me to pick a
quarrel with him, which is precisely what I intend to do. I'll meet his
schemes with some of my own, Mary likes me, and it will be at least a
stand-off in her mind if Brother Belknap and I fall out. Then the next
thing is for Arthur to get a party of men, capture Mary, take her off
and marry her."
Perez threw up his hands in horror. "Senor Saunders!" he cried; "for you
to say this! I am astonished! Abstract the lady without her wish? Surely
I have not heard you rightly--_chanzas aparte_, you play with me--you
wish to see me look?"
"Not I," says I, stout; "I mean every word of it. As Sax said this
afternoon, there's times when it's wicked to twiddle with courtesy. That
girl will ruin her whole life if Belknap has the making of it. Her
friends oughtn't to stand by and see it done--damn it, man! Suppose she
dropped her handkerchief as she was falling over a cliff--what would you
do first: save her life or pick up the handkerchief?"
Perez puffed and thought a moment. "_Tiene V. razon_," he says, "there
is more here than a ball-room. I knew her as a girl, I know her now.
Belknap I know too. My life I stake on it that for Belknap to win her,
means her life wrecked, and yet I stop--from habit. I stake my life--I
mean it--on my judgment, yet dare not stake an action to make that
judgment good."
He waited again, while the minutes slipped by; drumming on the table;
shifting things in his mind. The whole air of long, long use to the
handsome, nice things I saw about me struck me strong in the man. He was
born to it, and his forebears centuries before him. Yet instead of
breeding out the man in him, it had only taken off the scum.
At last he spoke. "Give me more time, _campanero_. I shall consider this
further. To meddle with other lives is always a dangerous business, just
as not to meddle may be a shameful one. As it stands, if he gets not the
lady for a wife, Saxton is a lost man--I know him. On his word, on your
word and on my word, she is not indifferent to him. We know Belknap is a
rascal, and for her unfit. And so, action--yet I am a man of peace."
He smiled at me. "Did you ever see a man of peace in more unpeaceful
place? Well, Senor Saunders, your plan has that daring which often cows
success. It remains to be seen whether Arthur can by any means be
brought to think of it: his pride will be afire at the thought--yes,
that is it. Listen. If you can gain his acceptance--and you have no plan
without it--I am with you, heart and soul."
"Good!" says I. "Shake hands on it. I sha'n't strike Arthur at once. I
mean to work up the disagreement with Brother Belknap first. 'T will do
no harm in any case if his head is punched."
Perez laughed. "You are warrior, pure and not so simple," says he.
"Heaven send strength to your arm when you meet."
"I ask no odds of top, bottom, nor middle," says I. "Give me a fair
field."
"There spoke a better spirit than Achilles of old times," says Perez.
"So should I be, if I had an arm like that."
"I'll bet there'd be some danger in you, my friend!" says I.
The light went out of his face. "Mention it not," he said sternly. "Once
it was my misfortune to kill a man--you are not offended at my speech?"
"Not on your family portraits!--but, of course, I couldn't know--you
ain't put out, for your part?"
"Only what is right I should be--what is it your great poet says--'bears
yet a precious jewel in its head'? So with me. To walk with a ghost has
done me no harm. In pity for myself, I pity others. But this is a
melancholy talk--come, I shall show you my pictures. Some are wonderful,
all are good."
So we went into the fine old house again and saw the paintings. They
were beyond my calculations. Outside of the things Sax never finished
and bar a chromo or two, I'd never seen a picture--I don't count the
grandfathers' portraits at home--decent people enough, them and their
wives, but not what you'd call beautiful except Great-Grandmother De La
Tour--she was a corker.
Seeing that I enjoyed 'em, Perez explained the pictures to me, what were
the good points. When I've told people the names on the pictures in
Perez's gallery, I've simply been told I lied.
Next Perez said, "You like music, Senor Saunders?"
"You bet!" says I. So he led the way into a room off the gallery. It was
a long, high room rounded at one end, with an arched ceiling. The least
whisper in there rang clear. At the round end was an organ. Perez
called; a little Injun boy came to pump the organ.
Perez seated himself on the bench. "Now," said he, "if only we had
Arthur--foolish fellow! Here is this great house with only one small man
in it! I beg him to live here, but he will not--he says he must live in
a place rough, as you saw."
"I'm inclined to think Sax knows his pasture, Mr. Perez," I answered.
He nodded. "I only spoke as I often do," he said, "of what I wish,
instead of what must be--so little a change would make this so much
better a world." He thought for a second. "An easier world," he
corrected; "really it is better as it is--well, I am more musician than
philosopher,--what will you, _amigo mio_? Something grand? military? of
sentiment, or peace?"
"I tell you, Mr. Perez," says I, "I don't know anything about music.
Can't you play pieces not too high for me, yet good to listen to, so I
feel it, and learn at the same time?"
He laughed as if I tickled him. "There speaks that so practical Northern
head," says he, "that will have the heart lifted and also a dollar in
the pocket."
"Am I foolish?" I asked. I never yet played being big before a man who
knew something. When he _knows_ he sees your little play and despises
you for it.
"Not foolish, _chico_," says Perez. "Only wise with a wisdom strange to
me." He wheeled and looked at me. "A most strange young man you are; the
strength of a giant, roaring health and no fool, and yet you will listen
to an older man--you _wish_ to listen. Receive the thanks of an older
man. The hope of such service is the one poor vanity remaining to him.
May time so deal with you that you shall never know the compliment you
pay--listen!"
The old organ burst into a pride of sound. Big and splendid--steel and
fair ladies--roses and sudden death. Made my heart get big and want to
do something. Perhaps talking with Perez, his air of decent sadness, and
his old-time way of speaking, kind of lofty for this date, yet never
slopping over; and perhaps the beautiful old house with its hangings,
pictures, and armor helped the music, but anyhow, as I listened, I had
visions. I felt like a lost calf that's got back to the herd and a sight
of mama. I was still in my dream when I realized the music had stopped
and that Perez was looking at me.
"May I take a liberty?" said he. "A resemblance has perplexed me since I
met you."
"Sure," says I, waking up.
He walked to the corner where there stood an old suit of armor. It was
made for a sizable man. Together we put the corselet on me, and then I
fixed the helmet and followed Perez's lead.
He held a lamp before us, as we went down a passage into a small side
room. There I thought I saw my image in a glass. Perez laughed at my
face, when I found it was a picture. It seemed magic to me.
"What in the world!" says I.
"Behold the Marquis De La Tour!" says he.
"The devil it is!" says I. "Still respected, though forty greats
removed! Perez, old man, that's my grandpa!"
"The face proves it," he answered. "He is also mine. Cousin, I felt the
pull of blood this day. Your hand, and we shall have a bottle of wine."
"It ain't often that a man meets his forty-ply great-grandpa and so nice
a Spanish cousin," says I. "I reckon I can square it with Mary later.
Lead on, McDuff, and dammed be he who cannot hold enough."
A very tidy little tidal wave of joy broke over the Perez mansion.
Everybody rejoiced; we had the man-servant and the maid-servant and the
rest of the menagerie in drinking healths to the new-met relatives. To
this day I ain't exactly sure how close connected Perez and I are.
Grandpa De La Tour was a little nearer than Adam, to be sure, but not
near enough, so there wouldn't have been some fussing about his will, if
it should suddenly be discovered.
One of his daughters married a Spaniard that started the Perez
line,--and My! but that line was spread out thin! There'd been pretty
husky families on my side, too; however, I was durned proud to claim kin
with a man like Perez, and I wouldn't have spoiled the lonesome little
man's joy in finding a relative, anyhow. All his tribe but him had been
wiped out completely. I was the only relative he had--that is, that he
knew about. The United States was full of 'em, if he'd only known it.
Europe, too, I reckon. Still, his talk about the pull of blood wasn't
nonsense, neither. I felt drawn to him from the first, and who can say
that in feeling and ways of acting we really weren't closer connected
than some brothers are? And Grandpa De La Tour was all right for an
excuse. I sure did look like him--not so much now, that I wear hair on
my face, but then I wouldn't have known which was him and which was me
if we met on the street.
Before we turned in for the night I spoke to Perez again about Sax and
Mary. He listened eager enough now. What I suggested was all
right--little peculiarities of a gentleman. As Perez put it, "The
greater courtesy of the heart, that stops not at the puny fences of the
fixed way." How different the same thing looks in different lights! He
was dead right about the fences. I never saw a fence yet without wanting
to tear a hole in it, but you've only to string a thread across, if I've
no business there, to keep me out.
It appeared to me then, and it appears to me still, that I had a right
to interfere in Mary's affair. At times, of course, you're a plain
meddlesome Pete, if you cut in, and you deserve all you probably will
get,--as many kicks as the parties can land on you before you escape; on
the other hand, Perez was right when he said it sometimes was shameful
not to interfere. And while marriage is the most private of all things,
it's the most binding, too: you can lose money, get experience, and make
more; fall out with your friends and make it up again, but a lifetime
tied to one person is the stiffest proposition a human being is called
upon to face. Here's Mary, a girl without much experience, putting
herself in the way of being hooked for life to a man I knew to be a
fraud--let her suffer for her folly? No, by the Lord! Let me suffer for
my folly, if necessary, but in it I go. We're all kids and sometimes
we've got to be made to do the right thing--and--here's the rub--if
strict but kind papa is sure he's right (which he can't be) its easy; if
not, I suppose it's up to us as per general orders, do the best you can
and prepare to go down with the wreck. I envy the man who's sure he's
right, but the Lord have mercy on his friends. Well, that's what Perez
and I arrived at; that we were stacked against a blooming mystery and
we'd shoot at the one glimmer of light we had. Mary _did_ care for Sax.
Good. Belknap was a fraud. Good. To the devil with the rest of the
argument.
However, I didn't reveal my full plan regarding Belknap to my kinsman. I
had a hunch that even my likeness to Grandpa De La Tour wouldn't
convince him. You see, like most kids, savages, and people not grown up
in general, I believed in playing the game as it was played on me. I
wouldn't let a rogue escape for want of a helpful lie in season, acted
or spoken. I couldn't see why you shouldn't get him his way, so long as
you got him. It took me some years to understand Saxton's saying, that
it was better for a rascal to escape, than for an honest man to turn
rascal in catching him. Plain enough when you think of it. If you work
low down on the other feller, to trip him, there's two rascals, that's
all. It comes medium hard to see it in that light, though, when before
your eyes the rascal is having it all his own way. And, while I
disapprove of my own methods, the results was great. No use talking, the
wicked sometimes prosper and your Uncle William played in a full-jeweled
streak of luck. The next day I opened my campaign.
XIII
RED MAKES A FEW REMARKS
It seemed to me it was only friendly for me to get some sympathy for
Saxton, as he wouldn't try for himself. Yet this looked a delicate
proposition. I can't give you the proper idea of how quick-witted Mary
was, how easy she saw the behind-meaning of your words, or even saw
things you didn't know yourself.
It's a good trait to its possessor, but, like everything else in this
world, there's a price to pay for it. She sometimes saw things that
weren't there. A man with extra good sight is more fooled by mirage than
a man who doesn't trust his eyes so much. And it had fallen down on her,
on the most important dealing of her life. She saw Saxton wrong, and
couldn't see him right, for that trust in her own judgment. She had to
root up the very foundation of her belief in everything to upset her
wrong judgment of him. She felt the drawing toward him was something to
be fought hard, the same as a man would fight a growing inclination to
drink. And like a great many people (although it's a thing I can't
understand myself), she swung to what was solemn, uninteresting, and
hard, for safety.
And changed! Well, that morning, when I slid around to the house of the
fountain, I scarcely knew her. It was Saturday, and no school. About a
dozen or twenty young Panamans walked or sat about the yard. The
Reconstructed looked stiff and unhappy in the boiled white shirt of
progress, but out of native good nature tried to appear pleasant.