BALTIMORE, MAY 29, 1909.
Leacraft finished his task in the west. The disputes were smoothed
out, the differences adjudicated, and a problem or so which had mixed
up the overseer and the Mining Superintendent at the mines in an acute
wrangle, disposed of. He was back to Washington on his way to Baltimore
and Sally Garrett. The invitation from Ned Garrett to visit Baltimore
and go with Sally and himself to Gettysburg on the twentieth of May,
had been accepted, and every movement he had made, each step he had
taken, since that memorable ninth of April when he first learned of the
complexion of political affairs in the United States, and had heard Mr.
Binn’s remarkable lecture, had been thoughtfully adjusted to getting
back in time for the pleasure and the opportunity of seeing Sally.
His own earnest desire to possess her for himself, to compel her
wayward and tantalizing spirit to acknowledge his mastery had
increased, and like most young men in similar relations to the unknown
quantity of susceptibility in a popular young woman’s heart his anxiety
grew with every lessening minute between the present and the moment
of confession. But at any rate Leacraft felt no indecision. Come what
might he had no misgivings about his own feelings, and lingered, with
no trepidation, over the thought of asking Miss Garrett to marry him.
Defeat was preferable to the hardship of doubt. He would be less
miserable after rejection, if rejection it was, than he was now;
tormented with an immeasurable uncertainty. And his English heaviness,
that semi-sepulchral seriousness which by some amusing compensation
in the gifts of Nature is mingled with the very substantial merits of
these people, induced a rather grim sadness in his mind, and he reached
the door of 72 Monument Square, Baltimore, with no actual palpitation,
but with a strained sense of the importance of his own fate which made
him grave.
Leacraft had many personal merits. He had an excellent mind, a
reasonably fearless heart, a sense of justice, itself the best gift of
God to man, and a face, which if not distinguished by remarkable beauty
became, under the excitement of feeling, and in the more propitious
circumstances of good health, attractive, from a manly comeliness, not
handsome perhaps, but certainly not commonplace. And he had physique.
He was tall and strong, and his strength acknowledged obedience to an
intelligence which made it formidable.
The door of the quiet house before which he stood, opened and
there--Leacraft almost stumbled into unconsciousness--_as if expecting
him_, as if flying on the wings of--if not Love, something else
uncommonly pleasant--as if impatient to cross the laggard moments which
separated them--was Sally Garrett.
It would be difficult to reproduce in words this difficult and puzzling
young lady; difficult to impart by any means less effective than
painting or have proven ineffective, unless somehow helped out by
personal acquaintanceship--the impression which gave both to her active
admirers, and to those who, for reasons best known to themselves,
had tried to forget her charms. Sally was decidedly pretty, she
readily, under the phases of excitement and gayety moved upward into
the realms of beauty. She was fair, not large, delicately modelled,
with perniciously accomplished eyes that looked out from beneath the
pencilled eye-brows, and under their long lashes, with all kinds of
provocative invitations, that were no sooner accepted than their
desperate little giver revoked them with derision and anger.
Her lips, of course met the most scrupulous requirements of the
critic, and her teeth were as fatally perfect. In coloring she
furnished an example of protean adaptibility. The emblems of fury were
seen in her flushed cheeks, and the tokens of contrition in the same
when they grew pale with grief. This was the secret of her compelling
art. She bowed to all emotions, and as they controlled her they set
upon her face the evidence of their presence, refined by the resistance
of a nature which abhorred wrong feelings, improved by the welcome of a
spirit which was magnanimous and sympathetic. No wonder that Leacraft
loved her. No wonder that a bewildered lot of other young men were in a
similar predicament.
I presume at this point I owe some deference to feminine importunity.
How was Sally dressed? Well; Sally had good taste, perhaps a trifle
insubordinate by nature, but a rigorous subjection to good social
usage had made it fairly unimpeachable. At that particular moment
in the afternoon of May 27th, 1909, after his extrication from
the subterranean embraces of the Baltimore and Ohio tunnel, and
an uninspired walk along Charles street, Sally to Leacraft’s eyes
presented the acme of sartorial perfection. She wore a white lisseree
gown in which were inwoven threads of gray which gave it “atmosphere,”
a kind of filmyness quite indescribable, but very inviting--above
that, a waist of almost the same color, without the gray threads,
and fitting tightly at the wrists with faintly voluminous sleeves--a
stock of daffodill yellow encircled by an aqua-marine necklace, and in
her clustering golden brown cascades of hair, rushed up into a chaste
confinement between pearl-starred combs--she had thrust an amethyst
aigrette. It was a willful thought, a vagary of sheer carelessness.
But it looked well, and--Leacraft might have danced a jig (if he knew
how) of pure ecstacy; and if his impurturbable nature would have
permitted so gross a jest--it was one Leacraft had himself given her
only last Christmas. You can see or infer ladies that your attractive
sister, given, as I have tried to do, her natural adaptibility for
embellishment, must have looked more than pleasing, that to a young
man approaching her with idolatry in his heart and prayers on his lips
she must have looked very nearly like the embodyment of the feminine
ideal, like that inscrutable loveliness which first wins from a man his
careless notice, and the next moment has him chained to its feet in
servitude.
Well; such were the circumstances, and Leacraft hastily removing his
hat looked with all his eyes at the fair vision, and found himself
embarrassed in speaking his formal salutation:
“How do you do, Miss Garrett?” “Why, Mr. Leacraft,” replied the arch
tormenter; “I thought it was Ned. He has just gone to get our tickets
for to-morrow. And you, Mr. Leacraft, go with us? You will see our
great battle field and hear our President. I’m sure you will find both
wonderful. But come in, Mr. Leacraft.”
The vision with intoxicating grace swung back the door and preceded the
tongue-tied suitor to the parlor. Mr. Leacraft left his hat and valise
in the hall, and followed. Another instant, they were both seated in
the deep room from whose walls the portraits of ancient and meagre,
or stately and peptic Garretts, looked down upon them, and in looking
were amused or distressed, according to their nature, at the display of
modern elegance, helped out by a tasteful condescension to antiquities
and heirlooms.
The next moment was successfully engaged in greeting Mrs. Garrett,
the mother of the vision, a dignified and well preserved lady, who
honored all her children’s friends with motherly hospitality, but
resented mentally all masculine strategy, whose ulterior aims were
the destruction of her daughter’s peace of mind. Her devotion to her
daughter was itself part of a devotion which made every thing which
bore the Garrett name sacred in her eyes, and which reflected a family
pride, unmitigating in its self-exaction, unrelenting in its engrossing
enmity to all that offended it.
“Ned will be glad to find you here Mr. Leacraft. It was only last
night that Ned said he wondered if you had got rid of the business
engagements that took you out west, and expressed himself willing
to believe that if you had, you would not forget his invitation for
Decoration Day at Gettysburg.” It was the voice of Mrs. Garrett,
a little somnolent in quality, with a subdued melodiousness, and
monotonously even in tone.
“Indeed, Mrs. Garrett, few things could have less readily escaped my
mind. It has been an alleviation to think of it when I got bored with
quarrelsome miners. Whatever good luck I have had in settling the
mine troubles came from my own eagerness to get back to Baltimore,”
and Leacraft turned with, actually, a very grave face towards the
meditative Sally.
“Oh, Mr. Leacraft,” said that unconscionable woman, “we have Ned’s old
classmate, Brig Barry, to go with us to Gettysburg. He is in the army,
a lieutenant, who has fought Indians on the reservations, has lots
of medals for bravery and is just the best thing in the way of a man
you ever saw. I half think your English prejudices will be a little
discouraged when you see him, or else you will love him as well as we
do,” and this merciless compound of mischief and bewitching beauty
looked out of her blue gray eyes with an absurd intimation of solitude
which half made Leacraft forget manners.
“Yes,” acquiesced Mrs. Garrett, “Mr. Barry is a great favorite. I
almost fear that Mr. Leacraft will find him unreasonably popular.”
“I am sure,” replied that rapidly aspiring sycophant, “that I ought to
feel no inclination to impugn Miss Garrett’s good taste.”
This was so evident an affectation to shield a too obvious chagrin
that the wicked object of the inuendo simply laughed outright and was
vicious enough to reply that “she had never felt it necessary for her
own comfort to have her own personal opinions endorsed by any one,” a
cruel barb that lacerated the tender Englishman feelings immensely.
The next instant the front door opened with a rough shake, and a
commotion of hurrying feet announced the arrival of Ned Garrett. Ned
Garrett was a typical American of the best breed, and with the most
unmistakable marks of that American suavity, sweetness and splendid
confidence, not a whit tainted with assumption or vanity, which makes
the American man the best type of man the world over. He, too, was tall
and fair, with fascinating aplomb, and a frank surrender to the claim
of friendship, without a too credulous endorsement of all social paper
not readily negotiable. As he saw Leacraft he ran to him with a glad
welcome of surprise and pleasure. “Good, Burney; I am right glad to see
you. I knew you would not forget us, and you will have great reason
to be satisfied with yourself for coming. The affair at Gettysburg
to-morrow will be splendid. The President will give us something
characteristic, the day will be the Nation’s, and the reunion of the
veterans of both sides--you know this country once tried to strangle
itself with its own hands--will be honored by a tremendous turn-out
of people. I know,”--with a laugh,--“that you Englishmen hate crowds,
unless they are turned to good account in celebrating the Lord Mayor’s
day, or the jubilee of a king, or something swell and uninteresting,
but it won’t hurt you to see the meaning of a great land’s reverence
for its fallen dead,” and the big fellow full of enthusiasm, his
handsome countenance dilated with pride, shook Leacraft’s hand, who was
quite as delighted to greet his friend, whom he appreciated on his own
account, without considering his influential relations to the desirable
Sally.
Sally and her mother were now standing and, with, from the former a
smile of approval and from the latter a gesture of satisfaction the two
ladies departed, a servant appeared, and the young men ascended the
stairs to prepare for dinner.
A variety of intentions had been coursing through Leacraft’s mind,
and while ostensibly he was engaged in the commonplaces of address
an interior agitation of plans and designs, all indubitably pointed
towards the denouement of his visit, were tingling through his cerebral
cortex with various success. He felt a sudden pressure of prudence
assert itself, as if by some sort of psychological premonition he was
made aware of the danger of temerity.
Left by Ned Garrett to assume the conventional apparel for dinner,
and lingering with a delighted inspection of the details of his
bedroom which he thought just reflected, to the nice point of a modest
assertion of feminine adroitness, a really exquisite taste, he ran
over the possible and best programme for the short campaign he felt it
necessary to devise for the capture of the gentle and ethereal enemy.
As he gazed, with increasing uneasiness, and poorly repressed envy
at Henry’s piquant and picturesque colored sketches of “A Virginia
Wedding,” and “The Departure of the Bride,” which offered themselves so
suggestively between the white curtains on the saffron tinted paper,
he came to this conclusion. He would that evening, if the occasion
presented itself for a really favorable interview, let Sally know how
much he thought of her, and how hopelessly unhappy he must become, if
she could furnish him with no encouragement. That would do just now;
but when they got to Gettysburg he might expect to find a convenient
moment to be more explicit, indeed to urge her to the critical
extremity of telling him what he might hope for.
This progressive method he fancied promised the best results, and, his
thoughts still recalling with infatuation the uncalled for insertion
of his aigrette in her hair on the very day when he was expected, he
imagined if there was not absolute surrender on Sally’s part now, there
might be compromising negotiations for surrender later.
With complacency, he looked at himself in the glass, walked to the
hallway and descended. He had reached the broad stairway which entered
the centre of the first floor of this sumptuous home, descending on the
two sides in a series of separate steps, and then uniting into a wide
terrace of steps, expanding upon the hall at the bottom, and guarded by
a balustrade, which ended in two newel posts of surprising proportions,
each carrying an enormous Rokewood vase, from which sprang a mingled
white and red exuberance of sweet alyssum and geranium. As Leacraft
stood at the top of the terrace of steps, he commanded a full view of
the lower hall. And right beneath him, at the foot of the terrace,
under the Rokewood vases, he saw Sally Garrett--the girl whom a moment
ago he had with some unction and self-flattery ventured to think was
not averse to his attentions--pinning on the lapel of the evening
suit of a most offensively good looking young man, a _boutonniere_ of
geranium and alyssum, filched (the theft was evident) from the great
vase above their heads, and to accomplish which, it seemed to the
maddened observation of Leacraft, that the young man must have lifted
the young lady. This was a conjunction of agencies too terrible to
dwell on with equanimity, and in pure fright Leacraft stopped a moment,
and became an involuntary spy upon proceedings evidently not intended
for an inspection so inimical as his.
It was Sally’s voice: “Well, Brig, I must confess that as an accomplice
in crime you are shockingly cool. It was quite unnecessary for you to
expect more than the flowers; and yet”--Leacraft seemed to hit the
balustrade with his foot. The interruption was perhaps involuntary. In
Leacraft’s condition, human nature could not stand a more excruciating
strain. Sally looked up. So did the young man. “Oh, Mr. Leacraft, this
is fortunate. I want you and Mr. Barry to be excellent friends. Mr.
Barry is wonderfully strong, and you are so wise. With his agility,
and your advice, I will have two escorts to-morrow that will save me
from any exertion of mind or body. Mr. Barry will help me over the
hard places, and you will explain things. Pardon,” with a coquettish
glance at her companion and a demure courtesy to Leacraft; “you must go
through the usual introductions. My cousin, Mr. Barry, Mr. Leacraft.
Remember, I rely upon both of you, and you must be as amicable as
doves,” and with that equivocal enforcement of neutrality, this
impossible beauty vanished.
Ned Garrett appeared, and saved the situation, or at least diminished
an insufferable embarrassment. The three men were the next instant
summoned to dinner. They were met at the door of the dining-room by
Mr. Garrett, a tall gentleman, still giving evidence of an athletic
youth. Mr. Garrett was a man somewhat tormented with impatience, but
genial withal, and possessing a singular power of rapid utterance,
conjoined also with the power of business-like demonstration. He shook
hands with Leacraft cordially, and addressed a salutation of flattering
familiarity to Mr. Barry.
Leacraft had suffered a very staggering blow, as he recalled the affair
of the stairway, and he fell back, with only a half-satisfied security,
upon Sally’s intimation that this unwelcome intruder--the Brig Barry of
her previous encomiums--was a cousin. And the plague of it all was that
he (Leacraft) was overpoweringly conscious of this same Brig Barry’s
indisputable charms. Mr. Brig was a type of physical perfection. He
carried on straight, but not too broad, shoulders, a finely shaped
head, such which, at their best, are only seen in America; a head which
announced to the world its intelligent emotions through the medium
of an expressive face, wherein brown eyes, dark, straight eyebrows,
a strong, large mouth, an aquiline nose, and blue veined temples,
overhung by short, curled hair, combining their mutually enhancing
details in making their young owner the target of feminine admiration.
Cousins are by no means denied the privileges of marital union, and
as there are all kinds of cousins, and the privilege is less and less
questionable according to the numerical distance between them, it
became a matter of preliminary importance for Leacraft to find out what
kind of a cousin Brig Barry was to Sally Garrett.
In pondering sadly over this uncertainty his well formed plans, so
agreeably outlined during his toilet, fell into disorder, and, as it
were, evaporated. His agony of heart was not relieved when he observed
the cruel object of his misgivings. Sally was placed at his side at
the dinner table; opposite them sat Mr. Barry and Ned Garrett, and the
ends of the table commodiously accommodated Mr. and Mrs. Garrett. Sally
was radiant; she was well dressed, and--Leacraft’s eyes first sought
its place--the aigrette was gone, and he noticed, acutely conscious of
all telltale signals of interference by others with his own designs,
a solitaire diamond ring on her right hand. His discomfiture was
complete. It was a sad discovery, and Sally, gleaming with a light of
happiness it was not his good luck to dispense, relentlessly added
to his distress by showering the loathed Brig Barry with glances of
commendation and approval.
But when could this engagement--he shuddered at the word--have been
made? Leacraft, solicitous from the moment he entered the Baltimore
house in the afternoon, had scanned that same hand with a jealous
scrutiny, about two hours before, and it was guiltless of rings--quite
free--he could have sworn to that. Was it possible that he had
witnessed the closing rites of their pre-conjugal union from the top of
the stairway? It was most likely. For a moment the unhappy man felt a
swinging sensation, a kind of revolting nausea that put an actual pain
in his heart, and a sudden impulse almost straightened him upon his
legs, and would have sent him flying from the house, seized him, which
only an indomitable Spartan furor of resistance, in his English soul,
could have conquered.
The next instant he, too, was smiling, even observing with pleasant
alacrity that when Brig Barry raised his wine glass to his lips, his
eyes fell invitingly upon Sally, and that flattered fairy responded by
sipping from her own, not, indeed, that such telegraphy of signals was
obvious or unmannerly; no! it required the jealous eyes of an irritable
rival to have seen it at all. It certainly was a cruel ordeal. It
certainly taxed Leacraft’s self-possession. It was so fathomless
and unexpected. Not a word from Ned about it, and Sally had always
before appeared austerely impartial. Perhaps it was a sudden fancy, an
illusion, hopeless on her part, because she could never marry her own
cousin. The Englishman rummaged painfully in his stock of conservative
teachings to prove conclusively that so abhorrent a social impropriety
could never be permitted. But there was the ring! Well, a ring; what
of it? A common gift; nothing more. It was madness for him to jump at
conclusions so recklessly. Two cousins admiring each other--yes, loving
each other, in a beautiful, domestic family way--and separated for a
long time, were naturally rejoicing in reunion. Stupid to attribute
so much as he had done, under so slight provocation, to their mutual
affection, the affection, doubtless, of a brother and sister; keener
indeed, as why not?
Ruminating thus propitiously, and only half conscious that he was
going through the formalities of a course dinner, and was but poorly
assisting the conversation, which consciously he thought had not yet
developed into any consecutive line of talk, he suddenly seemed to come
back to his senses, as these words proceeded with celerous distinctness
from the lips of the older Garrett:
“A despatch was received in the office this afternoon, about an hour
ago, from Colon, which startled us a good deal. Three earthquake shocks
have been felt in Colon, and an enormous tidal wave swept over Limon
Bay, in the direction of Mindi. There was loss of life at Colon. The
coast towards the _embouchure_ of the Chagres river has sunk sensibly,
and a rumor prevailed at Colon, at the time the despatch was sent,
that the walls of the great Culebra Cut had collapsed. This is bad
news, if it is true, bad news for the President, bad news for the
country. So enormous a disaster will be known at once, if it to be
known at all. The fact that no press accounts have been given out makes
me hope that our despatch is a mistake, a canard, perhaps.”
“Oh! the poor President!” exclaimed the sympathetic Sally; “he will
need his courage now. It can’t be so horrible. They surely can’t mean,
papa, that the canal is destroyed. That would be too shameful.”
“The operations of Nature,” said Ned Garrett, “are not generally
susceptible to shame. Nature is about the most shameless thing on the
face of the earth,” and they all smiled at the thought.
“Yes,” said Mr. Barry--and Leacraft watched him with eager eyes, and
listened with critical ears--“Nature has a happy way of discriminating
between shame and compassion. She tries to make up for her cruelties by
some new blessing, but she never tells anybody that her cruelties ever
made her blush. If this news is a portent of worse; if the canal should
be destroyed, if the isthmus is invaded by the oceans, a canal without
locks will be given to us free of charge.”
“And we have spent one hundred and thirty million dollars already. As a
financial proposition, it is hard to see why we have not paid as much
for one as for the other,” dryly commented Mr. Garrett. Leacraft felt
it incumbent upon him to say something, and his fatal over-valuation
of seriousness allured his tongue into a statement statistical and
scientific, something which might impress Sally--but which only
afflicted that young degenerate person with an immoderate preference
for the way her cousin, Brig Barry, might have said the same thing.
“I am rather curiously reminded,” began Leacraft, “of a lecture which
I heard in Washington last April, in which the lecturer, Mr. Binn,
ventured to offer a very alarming prediction as to the instability
of the Central American zone, and especially the portions of it
embraced in the isthmus. He was rebuked at the time in open meeting by
a Senator, but if your information turns out to be correct, perhaps
he is about to receive a stunning corroboration. It would be of some
psychological interest to know whether Mr. Binn in that case preferred
his own reputation to his country’s welfare.”
“I heard of Binn’s talk,” remarked Brig Barry. “I was near the Mexican
line, and we had had a brush with some greasers which were kicking at
Uncle Sam’s tariff. A Washington paper turned up in camp, and there was
Binn’s Jeremiad. I think the paper had it ‘Science Butting In,’” and,
to Leacraft’s surprise, Sally laughed.
But a moment later she turned to Leacraft with unaffected interest, and
said, “But, Mr. Leacraft, do you think Mr. Binn knew?” and her voice
was plaintive and concerned.
“It is reserved for astronomy,” said Mr. Garrett, “to have prospective
knowledge, to know the future exactly, with a calendar in one hand,
and a watch in the other. I think it is not an imputation on the
credibility of science to say that in other departments its knowledge
of the future is speculative.”
“Mr. Binn,” began Leacraft, “was not at all didactic, as regards
time, but he was emphatic in the general scope of his predictions.
He regarded the Isthmus and the Central American area as belonging
in their geological habits to the West Indies, and he had a very
poor opinion of the fidelity of the latter to implied obligations.
He regarded it as capricious and wayward, unsubstantial in its
composition, and a bit fickle in its attachments.” It was almost
impossible not to think that the speaker was not putting a little
bit of something more than science in his words. He continued: “His
views also involved a curious reference to a rather topsy turvy theory
that the earth was pear-shaped, and that the belt of earthquakes and
crustal disorders along the borders of the Pacific resulted from this
hypothetically crooked figure of the earth.”
Brig Barry was listening with intense attention, and a whimsical
glimmer of a smile turned the ends of his lips, while his eyes very
gravely, with a slight contraction of their eyelids, watched Leacraft,
with half inquisitorial perplexity.
“I think,” he broke in, “that the West Indies will manage to take care
of themselves. At least, present indications go to prove, that instead
of disappearing, they are on their way to bigger things. Commander
Beecham, who has just come from the Isle of Pines, told me yesterday,
that the island was rising, that in a short time it might become part
of Cuba. The question might then be asked, as we own the Isle of Pines,
whether we had not annexed Cuba.”
“I have heard of the Isle of Pines,” said Mrs. Garrett, “but hardly
understand what it is. Perhaps a little enlightenment on the subject
would not be unwelcome to the rest of you.”
“Do, Brig,” pleaded Sally, “in the role of instructor you may be as
successful in geography as in other subjects,” and Leacraft flushed and
sat back hard, to resist the harsh blow of this subtle reminder of his
worst suspicions.
Mr. Barry looked around, as if to secure the suffrages of the
company, and found every eye fixed upon him in expectation. It was
his turn to impress Sally. He last looked at her, and as he did, he
laughingly began: “I shall have no compunctions in being a trifle
the schoolmaster. The Isle of Pines, Mrs. Garrett, lies in a deep
bight or bay near the south coast of the western part of Cuba. There
are some six hundred and thirty thousand acres in it, and it is but
ninety-nine square miles less in extent than our little State of Rhode
Island. This island bears a sort of filial relation to Cuba. It is part
of the general chain of the insular mainlands of the Antilles. It is
not a coral key or a mangrove swamp. It forms a plateau from fifty to
one hundred feet above sea level, broken by ridges of hills or cliffs
that start out over its surface like the bones on the back of a thin
cow.” Sally’s deferential attention to Mr. Barry’s learning was here
interrupted by a very audible titter.
“I beg to remonstrate against any levity in my class, and I think, Miss
Garrett, you owe me an apology for attempting to disturb my recital.”
This mock rebuke completed Sally’s disorder. Her eyes, wet with tears
of merriment, looked at Brig Barry, who had assumed himself the amusing
expression of offended dignity, and she murmured, “Excuse me, sir,”
with such a delicious mockery of piteous appeal that her father laughed
aloud, but Leacraft maintained his stern reserve, with eyes uplifted
from the face of his rival.
“Small as this island is, it offers room for two mountain ridges at
its northern end, which reach the respectable elevation of fifteen
hundred feet, and are composed of limestones. There are other ridges
in the island, lower and less steep. The whole island is surrounded by
swamps, except towards the south, where it is rocky. Commander Beecham
says that in the last month strange uplifts have been noticed, almost
unaccompanied by any serious seismic--this last word, Miss Garrett, may
affect you unpleasantly; it means earthquake,--disturbance and shoals
and reefs are now bristling out of the sea, like the teeth on a comb.
And another singular circumstance can be mentioned. The island abounds
in warm springs, curative--for your benefit, Miss Garrett, I may say
that the word means healing--for rheumatism and throat affections,
and these springs are sinking; the water seems to recede within the
recesses of the earth, while in other cases the subterranean channels
have either crushed together, or have become filled up; the springs
are simply not there; they have vanished; the Commander has made
observations on the coast lines, and it seemed to him that they were
all rising. The Cuban coast is rising, too. He came through Havana,
and the shipways in the harbor have become so shallow that there was
a gloomy prospect that the city would be cut off from the sea. I only
heard all this strange news an hour ago, and I fear the excitement
caused by meeting Miss Garrett is to be held responsible for my
forgetting to mention it before.”
The allusion was noticed by only Leacraft; the next voice was that of
Mr. Garrett, whose face had darkened with apprehension. “Extraordinary!
It may be that our despatch is correct. It may be that there is a sort
of see-saw here, that as the West Indies rise, the Central American
coast sinks. But why not a whisper of such occurrences in the papers?”
“The see-saw fancy,” said Leacraft, now thoroughly aroused, and
forgetting his immediate disappointment in the face of a formidable
physical phenomenon, “was Mr. Binn’s. He gave me the feeling that he
thought that, like an inflated surface, where the higher elevation of
one part meant the lowering of another part, so the access of height
in the West Indies meant the loss of height in the isthmus. And the
provocation to any change would be earthquakes.”
“As to the papers not publishing anything,” explained Barry, “there are
no newspaper correspondents in the Isle of Pines, and I recall now that
Beecham told me that the authorities at Havana were so frightened over
the reports of the harbor masters, that that they had prohibited their
circulation. The thing may prove grave enough.”
“Let us hope,” said Ned Garrett, “that such rumors do not get abroad
before to-morrow. They are only half-proven assertions, based upon some
accidental and momentary circumstance. In a few days the Isle of Pines
may be the same as it was, with the salt springs thrown in, and the
harbor of Havana back again to its old position without so much as a
jolt. The sea serpent is now advancing towards our shores at the summer
resorts, why not a few nightmares from the tropics? A truce to ghosts.
Let us drink to the President and the Canal.” The glasses were raised,
their lips, before they touched the sparkling lymphs, offering, as if
in silent prayer, to the consecration of the beaded wine, unuttered
hopes for the country’s great head, and its great enterprise, had but
felt the amber current flowing from the engraved chalices, musical with
the tinkling of bits of ice, when,--a sharp cry of voices, a babel of
tumultuous and precipitated outcries smote upon their ears, entering
the open windows like an execrable assault. It was the shouting,
thrilling with an unusual impetus of omen, of the newsboys, as if
they had forgotten their mercantile relations to the news, which,
whether of joy or grief, they commonly announce in the shrill yells of
indifference and gloating expectation. Now their multitudinous voices
mingled in a monstrous hoarseness, as if constrained by a personal and
immediate sorrow and horror. Even ejaculations from men in the streets
buying the papers from the hawkers, entered the room, and brought
pallor to the cheeks of the mute company. Ned Garrett pushed back his
chair and sprang to the door, followed by Brig Barry, and the rest
stayed, immobile, like a stricken throng, waiting the next minute for
an impending immolation.
Scarcely thirty seconds had elapsed when the two men came back with
the papers of the street, one having the _Baltimore Times_, the other
holding in his hands the _Southern Herald_. The faces of both men were
pale, and on the cheeks of Ned Garrett shone a trace of tears. Barry
was the first to enter the room, and as Mr. Garrett, now standing at
the head of the table, his body half turned towards the door, his face
suffused with unchecked emotion--as Mr. Garrett said, “Well, what is
it?” he faltered, and dropping the paper to his side, he faced the
convulsed merchant, and was silent. It was Ned Garrett who cried out,
“The Isthmus is crumbling to pieces and the Canal is doomed.”
The order of events as we hear any sudden stroke of affliction, as we
suddenly confront the inevitable bereavement, as we feel the sharp
thrust of calamity penetrate our hearts, varies with temperaments
and sex; but for the most part it reflects the order of events under
physical attack, the stunned senses, and the reaction. It is in the
reaction that the difference among men most visibly appears. Slowly
Mrs. Garrett arose and left the room, and Sally, after a pause, during
which she had stolen to the side of Brig Barry, and lifted the paper
from his side, where it had fallen in his unnerved hands, followed her.
The four men were left behind, and of them only Leacraft was seated.
It was Leacraft who first spoke: “This is awful, but the Nation is
far greater than any misfortune that can befall it.” The other three
turned to him with one accord, as if saved from their own wretchedness,
and moved in his direction as if to embrace him. It was the right
word. It brought relief, and to one at least as he turned his back to
the speaker it brought tears. Mr. Garrett the elder looked intensely
at Leacraft, his eyes almost glittering with the sudden joy of
consolation, and said, “Thank you, Mr. Leacraft, for that true word. It
is the one we need. You are an Englishman, and your confidence in us is
part of your own Anglo-Saxon strength, and part of your best knowledge
that we are nourished by the same blood. Let us sit down, and you,
Brig,” (Ned Garret’s back was still turned to them) “read the papers to
us. The first reports may be much exaggerated.”
Some servants had by this time collected in the room at the side of the
butler’s pantry and waited there irresolute. Mrs. Garrett and Sally
also softly returned, and took their places at the table; with them,
as with Ned Garrett, the thought of the President’s misery unnerved
them. Barry had spread the paper before him. The dark head lines swept
across the sheet in ominous relief. They read:
THE NATION’S LOSS.
EARTHQUAKES AND LAND SUBSIDENCE ENGULF
THE ISTHMUS AND THE CANAL.
THE AWFUL CATACLYSM OF NATURE.
THE PRESIDENT DEEPLY AFFECTED.
THE MOST TERRIBLE CATASTROPHE IN MODERN TIMES.
News from Aspinwall of the most appalling character has been received
in Washington, and though an initial effort to conceal or suppress the
despatches was made, wiser councils prevailed and the country will
know the worst. America must now vindicate her courage and maintain
the reputation she justly holds among the nations of the world for
self-reliance and self-control.
A long telegram received at the executive mansion in Washington
to-day was given to the country by the orders of the President,
after unavailing remonstrances from the members of the cabinet, who
wanted the news withheld until confirmatory despatches were received.
It is believed that these _were_ received, and that the President
ordered the distribution of the news. In a word it announces the
destruction of the Canal, and the submergence of the Canal zone,
through a series of progressive changes in the earth’s surface at that
section, accompanied by severe earthquake phenomena. The confluent
waters of the Atlantic and Pacific oceans will mingle over the buried
structures of the Canal, and one hundred and fifty millions of dollars,
representing the labor of three years, and nearly fifty thousand
men, with an enormous accumulation of material, will have been spent
in vain. The Nation’s credit remains unimpeached and unimpeachable,
but the moral effects of this stupendous calamity can scarcely be
over-estimated.
THE STORY IN DETAIL.
A series of quickly succeeding earthquakes shook the City of Panama
on the evening of May 27th. They were slight in character, though
distinguished by peculiar rotatory effects, turning natural objects
half way round, and producing curious effects upon pedestrians who
became dizzy under their influence. These seemed to have passed inland
and to have accumulated in one severe shock at Miraflores, just as
a number of waves in water, chasing each other, may combine to form
a resultant wave higher than its components, and generally, if the
confluence takes place in the right phase, of a height which is the sum
of the heights of the smaller elements.
At any rate, a most violent disturbance occurred at the latter place,
throwing down houses, and opening hillsides, which was followed by an
alarming sinking of the ground. The railroad track disappeared, part of
the canal walls were swallowed up, an immense influx of water from La
Boca poured in, and the former site of the village became a lake-like
expanse. No further shocks were felt, although doubtless considerable
dislocation farther west had taken place, and the locks on the Canal
beyond the Culebra Cut, in the direction of Gamboa, San Pablo, and
Tavernilla were perhaps impaired. As if the hidden energies of the
earth had become reinforced, and the subterranean fires had renewed
their devastating fury, on the morning of the 28th a sharp upheaval of
the ground at Tavernilla, in the old delta plane of the Chagres river,
took place, almost immediately succeeded by as rapid a collapse and
depression. This alarming operation of the ground was repeated, upon
a titanic scale in the submerged delta plane between Pena Blanca and
Gatun. It was reported that at first small monticules of rock, mud, and
sand, appeared in the vicinity of Agua Clara, but these proved to be
ephemeral elevations, subsiding foot by foot, until with one monstrous
convulsion the whole ridge of hills between Limon Bay, to the west
on the Canal line, and Barrage at the old French dam, slipped bodily
into the sea, with unutterable sounds, the rocks as it were exploding
with immeasurable violence. The discharge of the mountain mass into
the oceanic depths caused terrific tidal waves to rush outward, and
north and south, in colossal walls of water. One of these swept upon
the panic-stricken inhabitants of Colon, its solid phalanx suddenly
approaching from the sea, and in conjunction with earthquakes that
had emptied the houses of the horrified occupants, bringing them all
to the verge of madness, from sheer fear. The skies, as if engaged in
some hideous conspiracy of destruction, with the moving earth, suddenly
darkened. Deluges of water poured from the ebony and swollen clouds,
lightning in incessant lines of quivering brilliancy shot from their
lurid depths, and thunders intensified by a thousand reverberations,
shook the recesses of the trembling hills.
It was not surprising that the spectators of these monstrous
happenings, with their earth vanishing beneath their feet, the
overcharged skies emptying the arsenals of their electric fires upon
them, and the irresistible floods of the ocean, rising like avengers
to overwhelm them, should have cast reason to the winds, and dumb with
amazement, and insane almost with horror, should have sunk upon their
knees, and waited for the engulfment, which was to them part of this
preternatural ending of the world.
Few were strong enough to resist the frightful strain, and the woods
and hills near Colon were filled with men and women in all states of
frenzy. Some with cowering limbs and bowed heads awaited the summons of
death or the call of Judgment, while others, lost alike to reason and
moderation, nakedly execrated Heaven, or, stark mad, plunged weapons of
defence into the bodies of prostrate women.
A few engineers at Colon had hastily constructed a camp on the higher
hills towards the north, in which they were imitated by engineers at
other points. These had communicated with the equipment at Colon, and
it was from the latter city, which had at last accounts suffered little
else than shocks of varying violence, but not destructive, that the
first news had been sent.
LATER ADVICES.
From Allia Juela at an old dam station to the north of Gamboa, in the
hills, and on the water tributaries of the Chagres, news has been
just received that the pertubations continue, and that the areas
about Aspinwall (Colon) are becoming progressively invaded by the
sudden sinking movements, and the worst fears are entertained for the
permanence of all sections of the Canal. A telegram received from
Graytown, Nicaragua, announces the awakening of the volcanoes of Costa
Rica, especially Poas and Irazu; steam and smoke are arising from other
previously dormant peaks, and ashes have fallen in large amounts in the
streets of Greytown. In an interview with Mr. F. C. Nicholas, the well
known industrial prospector of Central America, that authority says
the zone of possible disturbance may extend quite far, north and south
of the Canal strip, though in his opinion the more disastrous results
may be expected in the mountainous and volcanic chains along the old
proposed route of the Nicaragua inter-oceanic canal. He has himself
felt the tremors of the earth there and here ten or more years ago his
ear caught, so slight however that it might have been only fancy, the
faint rumbling of the mountains as if in travail, which at the time was
interpreted by the guides as a premonition of storm. Mr. Nicholas added
at the close of his interview that “when I left Colon after my visit to
Nicaragua common report had it that in Nicaragua there was a valley of
fire surrounded with blazing volcanoes, and that I had seen it--a good
example of Spanish-American exaggeration. It may indeed now happen,
that this fanciful picture might, in even a more extravagant and
dreadful way, be realized, and the long pent up forces of the earth,
slumbering through ages, become reawakened, with the most disastrous
consequences to the whole Central American domain, through a contagious
outbreak of volcanic forces and terrestrial subsidences.”
Barry paused, and his eye travelled down the page of the paper. He
stopped and exclaimed: “They’ve got wind of the things Beecham told
me about. Listen. ‘The Isle of Pines is rising, and in the opinion of
local authorities, the shoals at low water between it and Cuba will
afford an almost unbroken transit to the greater island. The Windward
Passage between Cuba and Hayti has been invaded by new reefs, and the
Monas Passage between San Domingo and Porto Rico is also reported
by sailing vessels recently arriving at Havana, to present unusual
and uncharted features, as if the floor of the ocean was also there
undergoing elevation.
“‘These marvellous modifications of the earth’s surface seemed
connected with renewed activity in the volcanic islands of the Lesser
Antilles. Mt. Pelee is again reported to be in eruption on the island
of Martinique, while La Soufriere, on St. Vincent, is in active
eruption, and Dominica, Santa Lucia and the Barbados have been visited
by unprecedented tides, which have been regarded as evidence of the
subsidence of the foundations of the islands themselves.
“‘We stand aghast before these incomprehensible phenomena; our minds
recoil before the awful powers of the natural world; we stumble in
darkness at the meaning of this inscrutable visitation; truly, we may
recall the words of the psalmists: _Then the channels of the waters
were seen, and the foundations of the world were discovered at thy
rebuke, O Lord, at the blast of the breath of Thy nostrils._’”
Barry ceased reading. He had read all the paper contained. He turned
mechanically to the sheet Ned Garrett had laid on the table, and
glanced over it, remarking--“it is the same”--and then there was
complete silence. It was Leacraft again who helped to restore their
composure; “I think,” he said, “that in any event the water connexion
between the Atlantic and the Pacific oceans is assured. Suppose the
canal structure, as it was supposed to be finally at its completion,
is all swept away or rendered impossible, an obviously easier access
from one ocean to the other is created. If a complete change in the
relations of land to water surfaces is now in progress, if Mr. Binn’s
disagreeable predictions are now about to be realized, a good many
remarkable and not altogether regrettable conditions may supervene.
The water-way may become a veritable strait, providing easy, unbroken
and capacious connexions between the Caribbean Sea and the Pacific
ocean--the islands of the West Indies may slowly converge into one
land surface, and a new continent invite populations and industries,
which the wild, slothful or decadent peoples of Central America, with
their hot, fever laden and deleterious climates, could not encourage or
support. We may be entering upon a new chapter in the history of the
world, and in the history of nations. Who can tell upon what strange
threshold we are standing? Let us wait and see. Man is subordinate
to and the victim of circumstances. Circumstance also gives him his
opportunities. What wonders may not the hand of God work in this
marvellous reconstruction of land and water? And if two hundred
millions of dollars, as representing the final cost of the Canal,
seems to have been swallowed up, what of it? A nation whose annual
appropriations--as I only read yesterday--are on the scale of six
hundred millions a year, should regard with comparative complacence a
loss of one-third of that amount, when it arises from a permanent and
desirable change in physical, perhaps human, conditions.”
As Leacraft was speaking, the little group of his auditors remained
motionless, with--it did not escape Leacraft’s jealous notice--Sally
and Brig at its centre, in a sort of mutually consoling contact, and
the servants a little behind, in a scrutinizing attitude, anxious
through a sense of sympathy with the evident distress of the household.
Mr. Garrett spoke, and Leacraft rose to his feet. “We have indeed
suffered a harsh blow, but it has its after thoughts of alleviating
hope, and you have shown us that our alarm is more emotional than
substantial. The country has been fed upon the proud anticipations of
the accomplishment of this Canal. It has become a political question.
It has colored the utterances of our public men. It has been the
dream of the President, as the crowning work of a pre-eminent list
of services to the nation. His energy has pushed it to the verge of
completion, and in its prosecution the Nation and the President have
become united in positive endorsement. It may all be right yet. Let us
hope and pray so.”
Flushed with real feeling, Mr. Garrett shook the hand of Leacraft, and
in a sort of review, the rest imitated his example, and left the room,
leaving Ned and Leacraft behind.
It was then that Leacraft turned to Ned Garrett and said: “I thought I
saw an engagement ring on the hand of your sister.” The statement was
a question. Ned Garrett looked at his friend with singular intensity
of interest and sympathy. He realized the anguish of the man who,
loving his sister beyond all earthly price, forgot a country’s peril in
the eagerness of his hope that perhaps his heart-breaking fears were
unjustified. The two men were standing. Ned Garrett took Leacraft’s
hand and placed his other hand upon his shoulder, and his earnest face
uttered its inviolable commiseration: “Yes, Burney; Sally is engaged to
Mr. Barry.” They turned and left the room.
That night it was not the convulsions of nature breaking down the
barriers of two words, and bringing into action new forces and new
vicissitudes among the peoples of the earth, that marred the sleep of
the restless Englishman. No; it was the face of Sally Garrett smiling
into the bending face of Brig Barry, and touching his lips.