REVOLUTIONARY UNDERCURRENTS.
When Mr. Tillman informed Jim Morrison that the minister of war,
General Carlo Lopez, was young and handsome, he did not exaggerate,
for Lopez was a remarkable looking young man. There is a popular
impression in the United States that the peoples of Central America are
of mixed blood and they are referred to by the impolite as "spigs" and
"greasers"--in return for which the Central Americans refer to us, when
they think it safe, as "Yankee pigs."
It is perfectly true that there are millions of Indians and negroes
in the hot countries and millions more who are half and three-quarter
breeds, due to the fact that the early Spanish explorers and conquerors
came away from home without their wives and--well, explain the
mulattoes in America. However, the early settlement of Panama and
adjacent countries enabled many aristocratic and cultured Spanish
families to come across the ocean, and most of these were very careful
to keep their blood pure.
Carlo Lopez could trace his ancestry back three hundred years and
demonstrate that none of his progenitors had married outside the white
race while it was obvious by looking at him that no red Indian or black
African blood flowed in his veins. He was about five feet eight inches
in height with straight, delicate features, extraordinarily fine black
eyes, a narrow but determined chin, and a clear olive complexion.
He was as handsome as some of those old grandees of Spain whom
Velasquez painted, and every time Ellen Goring looked at him she got a
queer tingling feeling which might be love for all she knew. She had
told Mrs. Tillman that it was unfair to womankind that a man should be
permitted to be so beautiful.
The Lopez family had lived luxuriously upon the earnings of silver
mines in the hills of Santa Rosa for three hundred years, except during
such periods as when enemies were in control of the government and
tried to confiscate the mines; then the male Lopezes took the field and
stayed there until their friends had acquired the government of the
republic.
Carlo Lopez had attended Harvard for two years, until the faculty
decided that he was too sporting for a student and expelled him; but in
this he had nothing on Jim Morrison, who was expelled from Princeton
at the end of his junior year for undue boisterousness.
Lopez had returned to Santa Rosa five years ago to join the Liberal
party, whose active members were hiding in the jungle with the
Conservatives taking pot shots at them whenever one of them showed
above the tall grass. The Lopez mines were occupied by the Moreno
forces, a Moreno general was living in the Lopez country house, and
things were in very bad shape from a Lopez standpoint.
However, the agents of the Morrison Fruit Company had discovered that
General Moreno proposed to make an exclusive banana arrangement with
the Blue Star Fruit Company, so they shipped down several carloads of
machine guns, rifles and ammunition, landed about a hundred American
adventurers who had seen service in the World War, drilled and equipped
the Garcia patriots for a few months, extracted an exclusive banana
contract from General Garcia, and enabled the cause of liberty to
triumph.
* * * * *
While Jim Morrison was having lunch with Mr. and Mrs. Tillman, Carlo
Lopez, minister of war, General Garcia, president of the republic, and
General Arnaldo Volpe, commander-in-chief of the army, were lunching in
the palace with a lantern-jawed, angular American who represented the
Blue Star Fruit Company.
It was Jefferson Tillman's business to know about this luncheon, but he
was busily occupied in trying to make good with the son of his boss.
"It's this way, your excellency," John Laird, the American, was saying.
"You've been on the level with Morrison for five years and what's it
got you? Just a measly twenty-five thousand a year. You've kept us out
of this country, you've made yourselves dependent on Morrison, enabled
him to make many millions, and all for what? A few cargoes of arms and
ammunitions."
"Morrison enabled us to overthrow the tyrant Moreno," stated Carlo
Lopez. "It is due to his aid that Liberty reigns in Santa Rosa."
"Well, that's all right. He's had his five years. That's probably
longer than he has expected. You got a right to make a change unless
you want to admit you're Tom Morrison's hired man."
"Take care," warned President Garcia. He was a fat, black-whiskered,
saturnine individual, and, if Carlo Lopez was a hundred per cent
Caucasian, President Garcia probably would not have assayed sixty per
cent.
"You have no opposition now," Laird went on. "The Conservatives are
shot to pieces. You have the country's revenues, a neat little army
of five thousand men, a couple of batteries of field artillery, a
hundred machine guns or so, and you don't have to take off your hats
to anybody. Morrison couldn't do anything to you now. Moreno is
dead, there's no revolutionary leader. And, general, I'll tell you
something else. The day is past when American business men can foment
revolution in Central America for their own purposes. You can appeal
for protection to the Administration at Washington against interference
in your government by the Morrison Fruit Company, and you'll get it."
"What is your proposition, Mr. Laird?" asked President Garcia.
"I want your Congress to open up the country. Some patriot can
introduce a bill repealing the exclusive agreement with the Morrison
Fruit Company and steamship company. A fair field and no favor, that
ought to be the motto of Santa Rosa. That's going to sound all right
in the United States. And, between ourselves, the Blue Star has a much
bigger pull in Washington than Tom Morrison. He's in bad with the
Administration."
Garcia looked at the minister of war. "Are we in a position to take
such a stand?" he demanded.
"Yes," replied Carlo Lopez. "Pizzo, the bandit in the hills, has only a
couple of hundred men. My spies report order everywhere, no plotting to
amount to anything. The army is loyal, is it not, General Volpe?"
The commander-in-chief of the army, a very small blue-eyed Spaniard
with red hair, nodded affirmatively. "They are being paid regularly,
they have decent quarters, and there is nobody to tamper with their
loyalty."
"In return for the privilege of trading here, what sort of proposition
do you make to us?" asked the president.
"A quarter of a million in American money, delivered to you to be
divided any way you wish. Fifty thousand a year instead of the Morrison
contribution of half that."
"In which case Morrison sends arms and ammunition to Pizzo in the
hills, slips in a foreign legion like that which fought with us, and we
have a real revolution on our hands," said Garcia shrewdly.
"At the first sign of that you can throw the Morrison interests out,"
Laird declared eagerly, "and lodge a protest in Washington. You can
depend upon the Blue Star to back you up."
Garcia looked at Lopez.
"Strange as it may appear to you, Mr. Laird," Lopez replied, "we of
Santa Rosa are not for sale to the highest bidder. We love our little
country. We took up arms against a tyrant and accepted American aid,
even as the United States accepted aid from the King of France in your
revolution. We have had five years of profound peace, we are prosperous
and contented, and we have money in our treasury. We gave our word to
Morrison and we shall keep it. The Blue Star was supporting the tyrant
Moreno, if my memory is correct."
"Bravo!" exclaimed the president. "The minister of war expresses my
sentiments, Señor Laird. Not if the Blue Star offered very much more
American gold would we betray our country and break our treaty with our
friend, the Morrison Company."
"Furthermore," Lopez said sternly, "I am fully informed of everything
which goes on in Santa Rosa, and any attempt of your people to
encourage the bandit Pizzo will be thwarted, Señor Laird."
* * * * *
"Well," said Laird, "I see I'll have to get in touch with my
principals. I may get a better offer."
The president rose from his chair with great dignity, having had his
coffee anyway. "Señor Laird," he declared, "this meeting is at an end.
Your remark is offensive."
The American agent hastened to apologize, and polite relations were
restored, but a few moments later the party broke up.
So far as Carlo Lopez, a Castilian gentleman of Santa Rosa, was
concerned, the government's statement to Laird was made in the best of
faith. That was true also as far as the president was concerned--at
least until he got a better offer.
The minister of war, of course, was fully aware that the son of the
mighty Tom Morrison was in the city, but he was not yet aware that Jim
Morrison was endeavoring to pay court to Ellen Goring.
Having stood up stoutly for the right of the Morrison Fruit Company
at the conference with the agent of the Blue Star Line, it seemed
to General Lopez, as he sat at his desk in the war office in the
Administration Building, that it would do no harm to let the son of Tom
Morrison know who was a true friend in Rosa Blanca, and how crafty were
the machinations of the Blue Star miscreants. Accordingly, he wrote a
polite note to Jim Morrison in which he asked him to be his guest at
the Exposition Restaurant that evening, and dispatched it immediately
to the Hotel Trinidad.
When Jim returned from a very satisfactory meeting with Mrs. Tillman he
found the note. Mrs. Tillman was a woman of thirty-five who had been
blond and beautiful. She had lived three years in Rosa Blanca and her
ambition was to get back to New York.
She had learned that the climate of Central America is horribly bad for
blond ladies of thirty-five, for it shrivels them, withers them, ages
them before their time. A young American girl will lose her color and
dry up if she lives very long on the Central American coast, but she
can come back when she gets into a decent climate; for a blond woman of
thirty-five whose complexion is on the wane anyway, there is no coming
back.
To win the friendship of Jim Morrison by helping him get the girl of
his choice was an opportunity she was eager to grasp, because it was
an important step to landing Jefferson Tillman some important job in
New York. She had agreed to invite Ellen to dinner the following night
and to seat her alongside of Jim Morrison. If Ellen proved obdurate she
would sing the praises of the young man until the girl relented.
If Jim had not known that Carlo Lopez was paying court to Ellen
he would have passed up his dinner invitation because it might be
tiresome; but, supplied with this information, he was appalled by the
fellow's impudence. Very curtly he wrote that a previous engagement
would deprive him of the pleasure of meeting the minister of war. He
spent the afternoon in his room in a state of undress, with a tall
glass filled with ice and yellow liquid beside him and a book which
bored him.
At dinner time he was early in the hotel dining room and remained late,
but the Gorings did not dine at the hotel that night. He found two or
three young Englishmen and Americans in the bar afterward and listened
to their jabber for an hour or so, and then strolled out into the
streets.
* * * * *
Night in Rosa Blanca was not so bad, as a balmy breeze blew in from
the Caribbean, and the stars were like lamps in the heavens and the
crescent moon was indescribably beautiful. The street sights were
interesting, and the peculiar aroma of the city was less flagrant by
night, or so it seemed to him. There was a principal avenue, wide
and well paved; two or three business streets upon which only the
_cantinas_ were open; and then a maze of narrow thoroughfares not much
wider than alleys, which were the residential quarters of the natives
of Rosa Blanca.
The houses were usually one or two stories in height, built in
solid blocks. Because of the heat, doors and windows were open and
uncurtained, so that a saunterer upon any of those streets might look
in and see the black and brown and yellow and near-white inhabitants
enjoying their home life. Jim thought the said home life was rather
disgusting.
There were many people on these narrow streets walking aimlessly, and
many more sitting on doorsteps. He seemed to attract no attention as
he moved among them, and when he came to a group which crowded the
sidewalk they made way for him with a courtesy he wouldn't meet in New
York.
He heard the bell on the cathedral striking the hour of nine, as he
turned into a wider and more prosperous street where the houses were
all of two stories. Upon the balconies of these houses he observed many
women sitting and peering into the thoroughfare below, commenting upon
the passers-by, giggling and apparently being well amused.
This street was less crowded than the alley-like _calles_ through which
he had passed, and as he came to its end it was almost deserted. From
a side street he heard the tinkling of guitars and then a tenor voice
lifted in a seductive Spanish song.
He turned the corner, and a few rods distant stood three men on the
curb with upturned faces; two of them playing guitars while the third
was vocalizing. Upon a balcony stood a yellow girl, dressed all in
white, who leaned her elbows upon the rail and smiled down, while, on
other balconies, other women were visible, enjoying the show.
"A serenade," he thought. "By Jove, a real Spanish serenade!"
The singer had a good voice, and he sang with so much passion that Jim
was convinced that he was the lover. A little crowd gathered which did
not perturb any of the actors, but they did not applaud when a song was
finished; etiquette demanded that the lovers be not disturbed.
Presently the tenor finished and made a low bow, sweeping the ground
with his Yippy Yappy hat, and then the girl unpinned a rose from her
breast, held it out and dropped it when he lifted the hat to receive
it. The young man picked the flower out of the hat, kissed it, and the
girl tittered and disappeared from the balcony. The show was over.