BOB.

This screed, remarkable as it was, had no mystery for Goodwin. He was

the most successful of the small advance-guard of speculative Americans

that had invaded Anchuria, and he had not reached that enviable

pinnacle without having well exercised the arts of foresight and

deduction. He had taken up political intrigue as a matter of business.

He was acute enough to wield a certain influence among the leading

schemers, and he was prosperous enough to be able to purchase the

respect of the petty office-holders. There was always a revolutionary

party; and to it he had always allied himself; for the adherents of a

new administration received the rewards of their labours. There was now

a Liberal party seeking to overturn President Miraflores. If the wheel

successfully revolved, Goodwin stood to win a concession to 30,000

manzanas of the finest coffee lands in the interior. Certain incidents

in the recent career of President Miraflores had excited a shrewd

suspicion in Goodwin’s mind that the government was near a dissolution

from another cause than that of a revolution, and now Englehart’s

telegram had come as a corroboration of his wisdom.

The telegram, which had remained unintelligible to the Anchurian

linguists who had applied to it in vain their knowledge of Spanish and

elemental English, conveyed a stimulating piece of news to Goodwin’s

understanding. It informed him that the president of the republic had

decamped from the capital city with the contents of the treasury.

Furthermore, that he was accompanied in his flight by that winning

adventuress Isabel Guilbert, the opera singer, whose troupe of

performers had been entertained by the president at San Mateo during

the past month on a scale less modest than that with which royal

visitors are often content. The reference to the “jack-rabbit line”

could mean nothing else than the mule-back system of transport that

prevailed between Coralio and the capital. The hint that the “boodle”

was “six figures short” made the condition of the national treasury

lamentably clear. Also it was convincingly true that the ingoing

party—its way now made a pacific one—would need the “spondulicks.”

Unless its pledges should be fulfilled, and the spoils held for the

delectation of the victors, precarious indeed, would be the position of

the new government. Therefore it was exceeding necessary to “collar the

main guy,” and recapture the sinews of war and government.

Goodwin handed the message to Keogh.

“Read that, Billy,” he said. “It’s from Bob Englehart. Can you manage

the cipher?”

Keogh sat in the other half of the doorway, and carefully perused the

telegram.

“’Tis not a cipher,” he said, finally. “’Tis what they call literature,

and that’s a system of language put in the mouths of people that

they’ve never been introduced to by writers of imagination. The

magazines invented it, but I never knew before that President Norvin

Green had stamped it with the seal of his approval. ’Tis now no longer

literature, but language. The dictionaries tried, but they couldn’t

make it go for anything but dialect. Sure, now that the Western Union

indorses it, it won’t be long till a race of people will spring up that

speaks it.”

“You’re running too much to philology, Billy,” said Goodwin. “Do you

make out the meaning of it?”

“Sure,” replied the philosopher of Fortune. “All languages come easy to

the man who must know ’em. I’ve even failed to misunderstand an order

to evacuate in classical Chinese when it was backed up by the muzzle of

a breech-loader. This little literary essay I hold in my hands means a

game of Fox-in-the-Morning. Ever play that, Frank, when you was a kid?”

“I think so,” said Goodwin, laughing. “You join hands all ’round, and—”

“You do not,” interrupted Keogh. “You’ve got a fine sporting game mixed

up in your head with ‘All Around the Rosebush.’ The spirit of

‘Fox-in-the-Morning’ is opposed to the holding of hands. I’ll tell you

how it’s played. This president man and his companion in play, they

stand up over in San Mateo, ready for the run, and shout:

‘Fox-in-the-Morning!’ Me and you, standing here, we say: ‘Goose and the

Gander!’ They say: ‘How many miles is it to London town?’ We say: ‘Only

a few, if your legs are long enough. How many comes out?’ They say:

‘More than you’re able to catch.’ And then the game commences.”

“I catch the idea,” said Goodwin. “It won’t do to let the goose and

gander slip through our fingers, Billy; their feathers are too

valuable. Our crowd is prepared and able to step into the shoes of the

government at once; but with the treasury empty we’d stay in power

about as long as a tenderfoot would stick on an untamed bronco. We must

play the fox on every foot of the coast to prevent their getting out of

the country.”

“By the mule-back schedule,” said Keogh, “it’s five days down from San

Mateo. We’ve got plenty of time to set our outposts. There’s only three

places on the coast where they can hope to sail from—here and Solitas

and Alazan. They’re the only points we’ll have to guard. It’s as easy

as a chess problem—fox to play, and mate in three moves. Oh, goosey,

goosey, gander, whither do you wander? By the blessing of the literary

telegraph the boodle of this benighted fatherland shall be preserved to

the honest political party that is seeking to overthrow it.”

The situation had been justly outlined by Keogh. The down trail from

the capital was at all times a weary road to travel. A jiggety-joggety

journey it was; ice-cold and hot, wet and dry. The trail climbed

appalling mountains, wound like a rotten string about the brows of

breathless precipices, plunged through chilling snow-fed streams, and

wriggled like a snake through sunless forests teeming with menacing

insect and animal life. After descending to the foothills it turned to

a trident, the central prong ending at Alazan. Another branched off to

Coralio; the third penetrated to Solitas. Between the sea and the

foothills stretched the five miles breadth of alluvial coast. Here was

the flora of the tropics in its rankest and most prodigal growth.

Spaces here and there had been wrested from the jungle and planted with

bananas and cane and orange groves. The rest was a riot of wild

vegetation, the home of monkeys, tapirs, jaguars, alligators and

prodigious reptiles and insects. Where no road was cut a serpent could

scarcely make its way through the tangle of vines and creepers. Across

the treacherous mangrove swamps few things without wings could safely

pass. Therefore the fugitives could hope to reach the coast only by one

of the routes named.

“Keep the matter quiet, Billy,” advised Goodwin. “We don’t want the Ins

to know that the president is in flight. I suppose Bob’s information is

something of a scoop in the capital as yet. Otherwise he would not have

tried to make his message a confidential one; and besides, everybody

would have heard the news. I’m going around now to see Dr. Zavalla, and

start a man up the trail to cut the telegraph wire.”

As Goodwin rose, Keogh threw his hat upon the grass by the door and

expelled a tremendous sigh.

“What’s the trouble, Billy?” asked Goodwin, pausing. “That’s the first

time I ever heard you sigh.”

“’Tis the last,” said Keogh. “With that sorrowful puff of wind I resign

myself to a life of praiseworthy but harassing honesty. What are

tintypes, if you please, to the opportunities of the great and

hilarious class of ganders and geese? Not that I would be a president,

Frank—and the boodle he’s got is too big for me to handle—but in some

ways I feel my conscience hurting me for addicting myself to

photographing a nation instead of running away with it. Frank, did you

ever see the ‘bundle of muslin’ that His Excellency has wrapped up and

carried off?”

“Isabel Guilbert?” said Goodwin, laughing. “No, I never did. From what

I’ve heard of her, though, I imagine that she wouldn’t stick at

anything to carry her point. Don’t get romantic, Billy. Sometimes I

begin to fear that there’s Irish blood in your ancestry.”

“I never saw her either,” went on Keogh; “but they say she’s got all

the ladies of mythology, sculpture, and fiction reduced to chromos.

They say she can look at a man once, and he’ll turn monkey and climb

trees to pick cocoanuts for her. Think of that president man with Lord

knows how many hundreds of thousands of dollars in one hand, and this

muslin siren in the other, galloping down hill on a sympathetic mule

amid songbirds and flowers! And here is Billy Keogh, because he is

virtuous, condemned to the unprofitable swindle of slandering the faces

of missing links on tin for an honest living! ’Tis an injustice of

nature.”

“Cheer up,” said Goodwin. “You are a pretty poor fox to be envying a

gander. Maybe the enchanting Guilbert will take a fancy to you and your

tintypes after we impoverish her royal escort.”

“She could do worse,” reflected Keogh; “but she won’t. ’Tis not a

tintype gallery, but the gallery of the gods that she’s fitted to

adorn. She’s a very wicked lady, and the president man is in luck. But

I hear Clancy swearing in the back room for having to do all the work.”

And Keogh plunged for the rear of the “gallery,” whistling gaily in a

spontaneous way that belied his recent sigh over the questionable good

luck of the flying president.

Goodwin turned from the main street into a much narrower one that

intersected it at a right angle.

These side streets were covered by a growth of thick, rank grass, which

was kept to a navigable shortness by the machetes of the police. Stone

sidewalks, little more than a ledge in width, ran along the base of the

mean and monotonous adobe houses. At the outskirts of the village these

streets dwindled to nothing; and here were set the palm-thatched huts

of the Caribs and the poorer natives, and the shabby cabins of negroes

from Jamaica and the West India islands. A few structures raised their

heads above the red-tiled roofs of the one-story houses—the bell tower

of the _Calaboza_, the Hotel de los Estranjeros, the residence of the

Vesuvius Fruit Company’s agent, the store and residence of Bernard

Brannigan, a ruined cathedral in which Columbus had once set foot, and,

most imposing of all, the Casa Morena—the summer “White House” of the

President of Anchuria. On the principal street running along the

beach—the Broadway of Coralio—were the larger stores, the government

_bodega_ and post-office, the _cuartel_, the rum-shops and the market

place.

On his way Goodwin passed the house of Bernard Brannigan. It was a

modern wooden building, two stories in height. The ground floor was

occupied by Brannigan’s store, the upper one contained the living

apartments. A wide cool porch ran around the house half way up its

outer walls. A handsome, vivacious girl neatly dressed in flowing white

leaned over the railing and smiled down upon Goodwin. She was no darker

than many an Andalusian of high descent; and she sparkled and glowed

like a tropical moonlight.

“Good evening, Miss Paula,” said Goodwin, taking off his hat, with his

ready smile. There was little difference in his manner whether he

addressed women or men. Everybody in Coralio liked to receive the

salutation of the big American.

“Is there any news, Mr. Goodwin? Please don’t say no. Isn’t it warm? I

feel just like Mariana in her moated grange—or was it a range?—it’s hot

enough.”

“No, there’s no news to tell, I believe,” said Goodwin, with a

mischievous look in his eye, “except that old Geddie is getting

grumpier and crosser every day. If something doesn’t happen to relieve

his mind I’ll have to quit smoking on his back porch—and there’s no

other place available that is cool enough.”

“He isn’t grumpy,” said Paula Brannigan, impulsively, “when he—”

But she ceased suddenly, and drew back with a deepening colour; for her

mother had been a _mestizo_ lady, and the Spanish blood had brought to

Paula a certain shyness that was an adornment to the other half of her

demonstrative nature.

II

THE LOTUS AND THE BOTTLE

Willard Geddie, consul for the United States in Coralio, was working

leisurely on his yearly report. Goodwin, who had strolled in as he did

daily for a smoke on the much coveted porch, had found him so absorbed

in his work that he departed after roundly abusing the consul for his

lack of hospitality.

“I shall complain to the civil service department,” said Goodwin;—“or

is it a department?—perhaps it’s only a theory. One gets neither

civility nor service from you. You won’t talk; and you won’t set out

anything to drink. What kind of a way is that of representing your

government?”

Goodwin strolled out and across to the hotel to see if he could bully

the quarantine doctor into a game on Coralio’s solitary billiard table.

His plans were completed for the interception of the fugitives from the

capital; and now it was but a waiting game that he had to play.

The consul was interested in his report. He was only twenty-four; and

he had not been in Coralio long enough for his enthusiasm to cool in

the heat of the tropics—a paradox that may be allowed between Cancer

and Capricorn.

So many thousand bunches of bananas, so many thousand oranges and

cocoanuts, so many ounces of gold dust, pounds of rubber, coffee,

indigo and sarsaparilla—actually, exports were twenty per cent. greater

than for the previous year!

A little thrill of satisfaction ran through the consul. Perhaps, he

thought, the State Department, upon reading his introduction, would

notice—and then he leaned back in his chair and laughed. He was getting

as bad as the others. For the moment he had forgotten that Coralio was

an insignificant town in an insignificant republic lying along the

by-ways of a second-rate sea. He thought of Gregg, the quarantine

doctor, who subscribed for the London _Lancet_, expecting to find it

quoting his reports to the home Board of Health concerning the yellow

fever germ. The consul knew that not one in fifty of his acquaintances

in the States had ever heard of Coralio. He knew that two men, at any

rate, would have to read his report—some underling in the State

Department and a compositor in the Public Printing Office. Perhaps the

typesticker would note the increase of commerce in Coralio, and speak

of it, over the cheese and beer, to a friend.

He had just written: “Most unaccountable is the supineness of the large

exporters in the United States in permitting the French and German

houses to practically control the trade interests of this rich and

productive country”—when he heard the hoarse notes of a steamer’s

siren.

Geddie laid down his pen and gathered his Panama hat and umbrella. By

the sound he knew it to be the _Valhalla_, one of the line of fruit

vessels plying for the Vesuvius Company. Down to _niños_ of five years,

everyone in Coralio could name you each incoming steamer by the note of

her siren.

The consul sauntered by a roundabout, shaded way to the beach. By

reason of long practice he gauged his stroll so accurately that by the

time he arrived on the sandy shore the boat of the customs officials

was rowing back from the steamer, which had been boarded and inspected

according to the laws of Anchuria.

There is no harbour at Coralio. Vessels of the draught of the

_Valhalla_ must ride at anchor a mile from shore. When they take on

fruit it is conveyed on lighters and freighter sloops. At Solitas,

where there was a fine harbour, ships of many kinds were to be seen,

but in the roadstead off Coralio scarcely any save the fruiters paused.

Now and then a tramp coaster, or a mysterious brig from Spain, or a

saucy French barque would hang innocently for a few days in the offing.

Then the custom-house crew would become doubly vigilant and wary. At

night a sloop or two would be making strange trips in and out along the

shore; and in the morning the stock of Three-Star Hennessey, wines and

drygoods in Coralio would be found vastly increased. It has also been

said that the customs officials jingled more silver in the pockets of

their red-striped trousers, and that the record books showed no

increase in import duties received.

The customs boat and the _Valhalla_ gig reached the shore at the same

time. When they grounded in the shallow water there was still five

yards of rolling surf between them and dry sand. Then half-clothed

Caribs dashed into the water, and brought in on their backs the

_Valhalla’s_ purser and the little native officials in their cotton

undershirts, blue trousers with red stripes, and flapping straw hats.

At college Geddie had been a treasure as a first-baseman. He now closed

his umbrella, stuck it upright in the sand, and stooped, with his hands

resting upon his knees. The purser, burlesquing the pitcher’s

contortions, hurled at the consul the heavy roll of newspapers, tied

with a string, that the steamer always brought for him. Geddie leaped

high and caught the roll with a sounding “thwack.” The loungers on the

beach—about a third of the population of the town—laughed and applauded

delightedly. Every week they expected to see that roll of papers

delivered and received in that same manner, and they were never

disappointed. Innovations did not flourish in Coralio.

The consul re-hoisted his umbrella and walked back to the consulate.

This home of a great nation’s representative was a wooden structure of

two rooms, with a native-built gallery of poles, bamboo and nipa palm

running on three sides of it. One room was the official apartment,

furnished chastely with a flat-top desk, a hammock, and three

uncomfortable cane-seated chairs. Engravings of the first and latest

president of the country represented hung against the wall. The other

room was the consul’s living apartment.

It was eleven o’clock when he returned from the beach, and therefore

breakfast time. Chanca, the Carib woman who cooked for him, was just

serving the meal on the side of the gallery facing the sea—a spot

famous as the coolest in Coralio. The breakfast consisted of shark’s

fin soup, stew of land crabs, breadfruit, a boiled iguana steak,

aguacates, a freshly cut pineapple, claret and coffee.

Geddie took his seat, and unrolled with luxurious laziness his bundle

of newspapers. Here in Coralio for two days or longer he would read of

goings-on in the world very much as we of the world read those

whimsical contributions to inexact science that assume to portray the

doings of the Martians. After he had finished with the papers they

would be sent on the rounds of the other English-speaking residents of

the town.

The paper that came first to his hand was one of those bulky mattresses

of printed stuff upon which the readers of certain New York journals

are supposed to take their Sabbath literary nap. Opening this the

consul rested it upon the table, supporting its weight with the aid of

the back of a chair. Then he partook of his meal deliberately, turning

the leaves from time to time and glancing half idly at the contents.

Presently he was struck by something familiar to him in a picture—a

half-page, badly printed reproduction of a photograph of a vessel.

Languidly interested, he leaned for a nearer scrutiny and a view of the

florid headlines of the column next to the picture.

Yes; he was not mistaken. The engraving was of the eight-hundred-ton

yacht _Idalia_, belonging to “that prince of good fellows, Midas of the

money market, and society’s pink of perfection, J. Ward Tolliver.”

Slowly sipping his black coffee, Geddie read the column of print.

Following a listed statement of Mr. Tolliver’s real estate and bonds,

came a description of the yacht’s furnishings, and then the grain of

news no bigger than a mustard seed. Mr. Tolliver, with a party of

favoured guests, would sail the next day on a six weeks’ cruise along

the Central American and South American coasts and among the Bahama

Islands. Among the guests were Mrs. Cumberland Payne and Miss Ida

Payne, of Norfolk.

The writer, with the fatuous presumption that was demanded of him by

his readers, had concocted a romance suited to their palates. He

bracketed the names of Miss Payne and Mr. Tolliver until he had

well-nigh read the marriage ceremony over them. He played coyly and

insinuatingly upon the strings of “_on dit_” and “Madame Rumour” and “a

little bird” and “no one would be surprised,” and ended with

congratulations.

Geddie, having finished his breakfast, took his papers to the edge of

the gallery, and sat there in his favourite steamer chair with his feet

on the bamboo railing. He lighted a cigar, and looked out upon the sea.

He felt a glow of satisfaction at finding he was so little disturbed by

what he had read. He told himself that he had conquered the distress

that had sent him, a voluntary exile, to this far land of the lotus. He

could never forget Ida, of course; but there was no longer any pain in

thinking about her. When they had had that misunderstanding and quarrel

he had impulsively sought this consulship, with the desire to retaliate

upon her by detaching himself from her world and presence. He had

succeeded thoroughly in that. During the twelve months of his life in

Coralio no word had passed between them, though he had sometimes heard

of her through the dilatory correspondence with the few friends to whom

he still wrote. Still he could not repress a little thrill of

satisfaction at knowing that she had not yet married Tolliver or anyone

else. But evidently Tolliver had not yet abandoned hope.

Well, it made no difference to him now. He had eaten of the lotus. He

was happy and content in this land of perpetual afternoon. Those old

days of life in the States seemed like an irritating dream. He hoped

Ida would be as happy as he was. The climate as balmy as that of

distant Avalon; the fetterless, idyllic round of enchanted days; the

life among this indolent, romantic people—a life full of music,

flowers, and low laughter; the influence of the imminent sea and

mountains, and the many shapes of love and magic and beauty that

bloomed in the white tropic nights—with all he was more than content.

Also, there was Paula Brannigan.

Geddie intended to marry Paula—if, of course, she would consent; but he

felt rather sure that she would do that. Somehow, he kept postponing

his proposal. Several times he had been quite near to it; but a

mysterious something always held him back. Perhaps it was only the

unconscious, instinctive conviction that the act would sever the last

tie that bound him to his old world.

He could be very happy with Paula. Few of the native girls could be

compared with her. She had attended a convent school in New Orleans for

two years; and when she chose to display her accomplishments no one

could detect any difference between her and the girls of Norfolk and

Manhattan. But it was delicious to see her at home dressed, as she

sometimes was, in the native costume, with bare shoulders and flowing

sleeves.

Bernard Brannigan was the great merchant of Coralio. Besides his store,

he maintained a train of pack mules, and carried on a lively trade with

the interior towns and villages. He had married a native lady of high

Castilian descent, but with a tinge of Indian brown showing through her

olive cheek. The union of the Irish and the Spanish had produced, as it

so often has, an offshoot of rare beauty and variety. They were very

excellent people indeed, and the upper story of their house was ready

to be placed at the service of Geddie and Paula as soon as he should

make up his mind to speak about it.

By the time two hours were whiled away the consul tired of reading. The

papers lay scattered about him on the gallery. Reclining there, he

gazed dreamily out upon an Eden. A clump of banana plants interposed

their broad shields between him and the sun. The gentle slope from the

consulate to the sea was covered with the dark-green foliage of

lemon-trees and orange-trees just bursting into bloom. A lagoon pierced

the land like a dark, jagged crystal, and above it a pale ceiba-tree

rose almost to the clouds. The waving cocoanut palms on the beach

flared their decorative green leaves against the slate of an almost

quiescent sea. His senses were cognizant of brilliant scarlet and

ochres amid the vert of the coppice, of odours of fruit and bloom and

the smoke from Chanca’s clay oven under the calabash-tree; of the

treble laughter of the native women in their huts, the song of the

robin, the salt taste of the breeze, the diminuendo of the faint surf

running along the shore—and, gradually, of a white speck, growing to a

blur, that intruded itself upon the drab prospect of the sea.

Lazily interested, he watched this blur increase until it became the

_Idalia_ steaming at full speed, coming down the coast. Without

changing his position he kept his eyes upon the beautiful white yacht

as she drew swiftly near, and came opposite to Coralio. Then, sitting

upright, he saw her float steadily past and on. Scarcely a mile of sea

had separated her from the shore. He had seen the frequent flash of her

polished brass work and the stripes of her deck-awnings—so much, and no

more. Like a ship on a magic lantern slide the _Idalia_ had crossed the

illuminated circle of the consul’s little world, and was gone. Save for

the tiny cloud of smoke that was left hanging over the brim of the sea,

she might have been an immaterial thing, a chimera of his idle brain.

Geddie went into his office and sat down to dawdle over his report. If

the reading of the article in the paper had left him unshaken, this

silent passing of the _Idalia_ had done for him still more. It had

brought the calm and peace of a situation from which all uncertainty

had been erased. He knew that men sometimes hope without being aware of

it. Now, since she had come two thousand miles and had passed without a

sign, not even his unconscious self need cling to the past any longer.

After dinner, when the sun was low behind the mountains, Geddie walked

on the little strip of beach under the cocoanuts. The wind was blowing

mildly landward, and the surface of the sea was rippled by tiny

wavelets.

A miniature breaker, spreading with a soft “swish” upon the sand

brought with it something round and shiny that rolled back again as the

wave receded. The next influx beached it clear, and Geddie picked it

up. The thing was a long-necked wine bottle of colourless glass. The

cork had been driven in tightly to the level of the mouth, and the end

covered with dark-red sealing-wax. The bottle contained only what

seemed to be a sheet of paper, much curled from the manipulation it had

undergone while being inserted. In the sealing-wax was the impression

of a seal—probably of a signet-ring, bearing the initials of a

monogram; but the impression had been hastily made, and the letters

were past anything more certain than a shrewd conjecture. Ida Payne had

always worn a signet-ring in preference to any other finger decoration.

Geddie thought he could make out the familiar “I P”; and a queer

sensation of disquietude went over him. More personal and intimate was

this reminder of her than had been the sight of the vessel she was

doubtless on. He walked back to his house, and set the bottle on his

desk.

Throwing off his hat and coat, and lighting a lamp—for the night had

crowded precipitately upon the brief twilight—he began to examine his

piece of sea salvage.

By holding the bottle near the light and turning it judiciously, he

made out that it contained a double sheet of note-paper filled with

close writing; further, that the paper was of the same size and shade

as that always used by Ida; and that, to the best of his belief, the

handwriting was hers. The imperfect glass of the bottle so distorted

the rays of light that he could read no word of the writing; but

certain capital letters, of which he caught comprehensive glimpses,

were Ida’s, he felt sure.

There was a little smile both of perplexity and amusement in Geddie’s

eyes as he set the bottle down, and laid three cigars side by side on

his desk. He fetched his steamer chair from the gallery, and stretched

himself comfortably. He would smoke those three cigars while

considering the problem.

For it amounted to a problem. He almost wished that he had not found

the bottle; but the bottle was there. Why should it have drifted in

from the sea, whence come so many disquieting things, to disturb his

peace?

In this dreamy land, where time seemed so redundant, he had fallen into

the habit of bestowing much thought upon even trifling matters.

He began to speculate upon many fanciful theories concerning the story

of the bottle, rejecting each in turn.

Ships in danger of wreck or disablement sometimes cast forth such

precarious messengers calling for aid. But he had seen the _Idalia_ not

three hours before, safe and speeding. Suppose the crew had mutinied

and imprisoned the passengers below, and the message was one begging

for succour! But, premising such an improbable outrage, would the

agitated captives have taken the pains to fill four pages of note-paper

with carefully penned arguments to their rescue.

Thus by elimination he soon rid the matter of the more unlikely

theories, and was reduced—though aversely—to the less assailable one

that the bottle contained a message to himself. Ida knew he was in

Coralio; she must have launched the bottle while the yacht was passing

and the wind blowing fairly toward the shore.

As soon as Geddie reached this conclusion a wrinkle came between his

brows and a stubborn look settled around his mouth. He sat looking out

through the doorway at the gigantic fire-flies traversing the quiet

streets.

If this was a message to him from Ida, what could it mean save an

overture toward a reconciliation? And if that, why had she not used the

same methods of the post instead of this uncertain and even flippant

means of communication? A note in an empty bottle, cast into the sea!

There was something light and frivolous about it, if not actually

contemptuous.

The thought stirred his pride and subdued whatever emotions had been

resurrected by the finding of the bottle.

Geddie put on his coat and hat and walked out. He followed a street

that led him along the border of the little plaza where a band was

playing and people were rambling, care-free and indolent. Some timorous

_señoritas_ scurrying past with fire-flies tangled in the jetty braids

of their hair glanced at him with shy, flattering eyes. The air was

languorous with the scent of jasmin and orange-blossoms.

The consul stayed his steps at the house of Bernard Brannigan. Paula

was swinging in a hammock on the gallery. She rose from it like a bird

from its nest. The colour came to her cheek at the sound of Geddie’s

voice.

He was charmed at the sight of her costume—a flounced muslin dress,

with a little jacket of white flannel, all made with neatness and

style. He suggested a stroll, and they walked out to the old Indian

well on the hill road. They sat on the curb, and there Geddie made the

expected but long-deferred speech. Certain though he had been that she

would not say him nay, he was thrilled with joy at the completeness and

sweetness of her surrender. Here was surely a heart made for love and

steadfastness. Here was no caprice or questionings or captious

standards of convention.

When Geddie kissed Paula at her door that night he was happier than he

had ever been before. “Here in this hollow lotus land, ever to live and

lie reclined” seemed to him, as it has seemed to many mariners, the

best as well as the easiest. His future would be an ideal one. He had

attained a Paradise without a serpent. His Eve would be indeed a part

of him, unbeguiled, and therefore more beguiling. He had made his

decision to-night, and his heart was full of serene, assured content.

Geddie went back to his house whistling that finest and saddest love

song, “La Golondrina.” At the door his tame monkey leaped down from his

shelf, chattering briskly. The consul turned to his desk to get him

some nuts he usually kept there. Reaching in the half-darkness, his

hand struck against the bottle. He started as if he had touched the

cold rotundity of a serpent.

He had forgotten that the bottle was there.

He lighted the lamp and fed the monkey. Then, very deliberately, he

lighted a cigar, and took the bottle in his hand, and walked down the

path to the beach.

There was a moon, and the sea was glorious. The breeze had shifted, as

it did each evening, and was now rushing steadily seaward.

Stepping to the water’s edge, Geddie hurled the unopened bottle far out

into the sea. It disappeared for a moment, and then shot upward twice

its length. Geddie stood still, watching it. The moonlight was so

bright that he could see it bobbing up and down with the little waves.

Slowly it receded from the shore, flashing and turning as it went. The

wind was carrying it out to sea. Soon it became a mere speck,

doubtfully discerned at irregular intervals; and then the mystery of it

was swallowed up by the greater mystery of the ocean. Geddie stood

still upon the beach, smoking and looking out upon the water.

“Simon!—Oh, Simon!—wake up there, Simon!” bawled a sonorous voice at

the edge of the water.

Old Simon Cruz was a half-breed fisherman and smuggler who lived in a

hut on the beach. Out of his earliest nap Simon was thus awakened.

He slipped on his shoes and went outside. Just landing from one of the

_Valhalla’s_ boats was the third mate of that vessel, who was an

acquaintance of Simon’s, and three sailors from the fruiter.

“Go up, Simon,” called the mate, “and find Dr. Gregg or Mr. Goodwin or

anybody that’s a friend to Mr. Geddie, and bring ’em here at once.”

“Saints of the skies!” said Simon, sleepily, “nothing has happened to

Mr. Geddie?”

“He’s under that tarpauling,” said the mate, pointing to the boat, “and

he’s rather more than half drownded. We seen him from the steamer

nearly a mile out from shore, swimmin’ like mad after a bottle that was

floatin’ in the water, outward bound. We lowered the gig and started

for him. He nearly had his hand on the bottle, when he gave out and

went under. We pulled him out in time to save him, maybe; but the

doctor is the one to decide that.”

“A bottle?” said the old man, rubbing his eyes. He was not yet fully

awake. “Where is the bottle?”

“Driftin’ along out there some’eres,” said the mate, jerking his thumb

toward the sea. “Get on with you, Simon.”

III

SMITH

Goodwin and the ardent patriot, Zavalla, took all the precautions that

their foresight could contrive to prevent the escape of President

Miraflores and his companion. They sent trusted messengers up the coast

to Solitas and Alazan to warn the local leaders of the flight, and to

instruct them to patrol the water line and arrest the fugitives at all

hazards should they reveal themselves in that territory. After this was

done there remained only to cover the district about Coralio and await

the coming of the quarry. The nets were well spread. The roads were so

few, the opportunities for embarkation so limited, and the two or three

probable points of exit so well guarded that it would be strange indeed

if there should slip through the meshes so much of the country’s

dignity, romance, and collateral. The president would, without doubt,

move as secretly as possible, and endeavour to board a vessel by

stealth from some secluded point along the shore.

On the fourth day after the receipt of Englehart’s telegram the

_Karlsefin_, a Norwegian steamer chartered by the New Orleans fruit

trade, anchored off Coralio with three hoarse toots of her siren. The

_Karlsefin_ was not one of the line operated by the Vesuvius Fruit

Company. She was something of a dilettante, doing odd jobs for a

company that was scarcely important enough to figure as a rival to the

Vesuvius. The movements of the _Karlsefin_ were dependent upon the

state of the market. Sometimes she would ply steadily between the

Spanish Main and New Orleans in the regular transport of fruit; next

she would be making erratic trips to Mobile or Charleston, or even as

far north as New York, according to the distribution of the fruit

supply.

Goodwin lounged upon the beach with the usual crowd of idlers that had

gathered to view the steamer. Now that President Miraflores might be

expected to reach the borders of his abjured country at any time, the

orders were to keep a strict and unrelenting watch. Every vessel that

approached the shores might now be considered a possible means of

escape for the fugitives; and an eye was kept even on the sloops and

dories that belonged to the sea-going contingent of Coralio. Goodwin

and Zavalla moved everywhere, but without ostentation, watching the

loopholes of escape.

The customs officials crowded importantly into their boat and rowed out

to the _Karlsefin_. A boat from the steamer landed her purser with his

papers, and took out the quarantine doctor with his green umbrella and

clinical thermometer. Next a swarm of Caribs began to load upon

lighters the thousands of bunches of bananas heaped upon the shore and

row them out to the steamer. The _Karlsefin_ had no passenger list, and

was soon done with the attention of the authorities. The purser

declared that the steamer would remain at anchor until morning, taking

on her fruit during the night. The _Karlsefin_ had come, he said, from

New York, to which port her latest load of oranges and cocoanuts had

been conveyed. Two or three of the freighter sloops were engaged to

assist in the work, for the captain was anxious to make a quick return

in order to reap the advantage offered by a certain dearth of fruit in

the States.

About four o’clock in the afternoon another of those marine monsters,

not very familiar in those waters, hove in sight, following the fateful

_Idalia_—a graceful steam yacht, painted a light buff, clean-cut as a

steel engraving. The beautiful vessel hovered off shore, see-sawing the

waves as lightly as a duck in a rain barrel. A swift boat manned by a

crew in uniform came ashore, and a stocky-built man leaped to the

sands.

The new-comer seemed to turn a disapproving eye upon the rather motley

congregation of native Anchurians, and made his way at once toward

Goodwin, who was the most conspicuously Anglo-Saxon figure present.

Goodwin greeted him with courtesy.

Conversation developed that the newly landed one was named Smith, and

that he had come in a yacht. A meagre biography, truly; for the yacht

was most apparent; and the “Smith” not beyond a reasonable guess before

the revelation. Yet to the eye of Goodwin, who had seen several things,

there was a discrepancy between Smith and his yacht. A bullet-headed

man Smith was, with an oblique, dead eye and the moustache of a

cocktail-mixer. And unless he had shifted costumes before putting off

for shore he had affronted the deck of his correct vessel clad in a

pearl-gray derby, a gay plaid suit and vaudeville neckwear. Men owning

pleasure yachts generally harmonize better with them.

Smith looked business, but he was no advertiser. He commented upon the

scenery, remarking upon its fidelity to the pictures in the geography;

and then inquired for the United States consul. Goodwin pointed out the

starred-and-striped bunting hanging above the little consulate, which

was concealed behind the orange-trees.

“Mr. Geddie, the consul, will be sure to be there,” said Goodwin. “He

was very nearly drowned a few days ago while taking a swim in the sea,

and the doctor has ordered him to remain indoors for some time.”

Smith plowed his way through the sand to the consulate, his

haberdashery creating violent discord against the smooth tropical blues

and greens.

Geddie was lounging in his hammock, somewhat pale of face and languid

in pose. On that night when the _Valhalla’s_ boat had brought him

ashore apparently drenched to death by the sea, Doctor Gregg and his

other friends had toiled for hours to preserve the little spark of life

that remained to him. The bottle, with its impotent message, was gone

out to sea, and the problem that it had provoked was reduced to a

simple sum in addition—one and one make two, by the rule of arithmetic;

one by the rule of romance.

There is a quaint old theory that man may have two souls—a peripheral

one which serves ordinarily, and a central one which is stirred only at

certain times, but then with activity and vigour. While under the

domination of the former a man will shave, vote, pay taxes, give money

to his family, buy subscription books and comport himself on the

average plan. But let the central soul suddenly become dominant, and he

may, in the twinkling of an eye, turn upon the partner of his joys with

furious execration; he may change his politics while you could snap

your fingers; he may deal out deadly insult to his dearest friend; he

may get him, instanter, to a monastery or a dance hall; he may elope,

or hang himself—or he may write a song or poem, or kiss his wife

unasked, or give his funds to the search of a microbe. Then the

peripheral soul will return; and we have our safe, sane citizen again.

It is but the revolt of the Ego against Order; and its effect is to

shake up the atoms only that they may settle where they belong.

Geddie’s revulsion had been a mild one—no more than a swim in a summer

sea after so inglorious an object as a drifting bottle. And now he was

himself again. Upon his desk, ready for the post, was a letter to his

government tendering his resignation as consul, to be effective as soon

as another could be appointed in his place. For Bernard Brannigan, who

never did things in a half-way manner, was to take Geddie at once for a

partner in his very profitable and various enterprises; and Paula was

happily engaged in plans for refurnishing and decorating the upper

story of the Brannigan house.

The consul rose from his hammock when he saw the conspicuous stranger

in his door.

“Keep your seat, old man,” said the visitor, with an airy wave of his

large hand. “My name’s Smith; and I’ve come in a yacht. You are the

consul—is that right? A big, cool guy on the beach directed me here.

Thought I’d pay my respects to the flag.”

“Sit down,” said Geddie. “I’ve been admiring your craft ever since it

came in sight. Looks like a fast sailer. What’s her tonnage?”

“Search me!” said Smith. “I don’t know what she weighs in at. But she’s

got a tidy gait. The _Rambler_—that’s her name—don’t take the dust of

anything afloat. This is my first trip on her. I’m taking a squint

along this coast just to get an idea of the countries where the rubber

and red pepper and revolutions come from. I had no idea there was so

much scenery down here. Why, Central Park ain’t in it with this neck of

the woods. I’m from New York. They get monkeys, and cocoanuts, and

parrots down here—is that right?”

“We have them all,” said Geddie. “I’m quite sure that our fauna and

flora would take a prize over Central Park.”

“Maybe they would,” admitted Smith, cheerfully. “I haven’t seen them

yet. But I guess you’ve got us skinned on the animal and vegetation

question. You don’t have much travel here, do you?”

“Travel?” queried the consul. “I suppose you mean passengers on the

steamers. No; very few people land in Coralio. An investor now and

then—tourists and sight-seers generally go further down the coast to

one of the larger towns where there is a harbour.”

“I see a ship out there loading up with bananas,” said Smith. “Any

passengers come on her?”

“That’s the _Karlsefin_,” said the consul. “She’s a tramp fruiter—made

her last trip to New York, I believe. No; she brought no passengers. I

saw her boat come ashore, and there was no one. About the only exciting

recreation we have here is watching steamers when they arrive; and a

passenger on one of them generally causes the whole town to turn out.

If you are going to remain in Coralio a while, Mr. Smith, I’ll be glad

to take you around to meet some people. There are four or five American

chaps that are good to know, besides the native high-fliers.”

“Thanks,” said the yachtsman, “but I wouldn’t put you to the trouble.

I’d like to meet the guys you speak of, but I won’t be here long enough

to do much knocking around. That cool gent on the beach spoke of a

doctor; can you tell me where I could find him? The _Rambler_ ain’t

quite as steady on her feet as a Broadway hotel; and a fellow gets a

touch of seasickness now and then. Thought I’d strike the croaker for a

handful of the little sugar pills, in case I need ’em.”

“You will be apt to find Dr. Gregg at the hotel,” said the consul. “You

can see it from the door—it’s that two-story building with the balcony,

where the orange-trees are.”

The Hotel de los Estranjeros was a dreary hostelry, in great disuse

both by strangers and friends. It stood at a corner of the Street of

the Holy Sepulchre. A grove of small orange-trees crowded against one

side of it, enclosed by a low, rock wall over which a tall man might

easily step. The house was of plastered adobe, stained a hundred shades

of colour by the salt breeze and the sun. Upon its upper balcony opened

a central door and two windows containing broad jalousies instead of

sashes.

The lower floor communicated by two doorways with the narrow,

rock-paved sidewalk. The _pulperia_—or drinking shop—of the

proprietress, Madama Timotea Ortiz, occupied the ground floor. On the

bottles of brandy, _anisada_, Scotch “smoke” and inexpensive wines

behind the little counter the dust lay thick save where the fingers of

infrequent customers had left irregular prints. The upper story

contained four or five guest-rooms which were rarely put to their

destined use. Sometimes a fruit-grower, riding in from his plantation

to confer with his agent, would pass a melancholy night in the dismal

upper story; sometimes a minor native official on some trifling

government quest would have his pomp and majesty awed by Madama’s

sepulchral hospitality. But Madama sat behind her bar content, not

desiring to quarrel with Fate. If anyone required meat, drink or

lodging at the Hotel de los Estranjeros they had but to come, and be

served. _Está bueno._ If they came not, why, then, they came not. _Está

bueno._

As the exceptional yachtsman was making his way down the precarious

sidewalk of the Street of the Holy Sepulchre, the solitary permanent

guest of that decaying hotel sat at its door, enjoying the breeze from

the sea.

Dr. Gregg, the quarantine physician, was a man of fifty or sixty, with

a florid face and the longest beard between Topeka and Terra del Fuego.

He held his position by virtue of an appointment by the Board of Health

of a seaport city in one of the Southern states. That city feared the

ancient enemy of every Southern seaport—the yellow fever—and it was the

duty of Dr. Gregg to examine crew and passengers of every vessel

leaving Coralio for preliminary symptoms. The duties were light, and

the salary, for one who lived in Coralio, ample. Surplus time there was

in plenty; and the good doctor added to his gains by a large private

practice among the residents of the coast. The fact that he did not

know ten words of Spanish was no obstacle; a pulse could be felt and a

fee collected without one being a linguist. Add to the description the

facts that the doctor had a story to tell concerning the operation of

trepanning which no listener had ever allowed him to conclude, and that

he believed in brandy as a prophylactic; and the special points of

interest possessed by Dr. Gregg will have become exhausted.

The doctor had dragged a chair to the sidewalk. He was coatless, and he

leaned back against the wall and smoked, while he stroked his beard.

Surprise came into his pale blue eyes when he caught sight of Smith in

his unusual and prismatic clothes.

“You’re Dr. Gregg—is that right?” said Smith, feeling the dog’s head

pin in his tie. “The constable—I mean the consul, told me you hung out

at this caravansary. My name’s Smith; and I came in a yacht. Taking a

cruise around, looking at the monkeys and pineapple-trees. Come inside

and have a drink, Doc. This café looks on the blink, but I guess it can

set out something wet.”

“I will join you, sir, in just a taste of brandy,” said Dr. Gregg,

rising quickly. “I find that as a prophylactic a little brandy is

almost a necessity in this climate.”

As they turned to enter the _pulperia_ a native man, barefoot, glided

noiselessly up and addressed the doctor in Spanish. He was

yellowish-brown, like an over-ripe lemon; he wore a cotton shirt and

ragged linen trousers girded by a leather belt. His face was like an

animal’s, live and wary, but without promise of much intelligence. This

man jabbered with animation and so much seriousness that it seemed a

pity that his words were to be wasted.

Dr. Gregg felt his pulse.

“You sick?” he inquired.

“_Mi mujer está enferma en la casa_,” said the man, thus endeavouring

to convey the news, in the only language open to him, that his wife lay

ill in her palm-thatched hut.

The doctor drew a handful of capsules filled with a white powder from

his trousers pocket. He counted out ten of them into the native’s hand,

and held up his forefinger impressively.

“Take one,” said the doctor, “every two hours.” He then held up two

fingers, shaking them emphatically before the native’s face. Next he

pulled out his watch and ran his finger round its dial twice. Again the

two fingers confronted the patient’s nose. “Two—two—two hours,”

repeated the doctor.

“_Si, Señor_,” said the native, sadly.

He pulled a cheap silver watch from his own pocket and laid it in the

doctor’s hand. “Me bring,” said he, struggling painfully with his scant

English, “other watchy to-morrow.” Then he departed downheartedly with

his capsules.

“A very ignorant race of people, sir,” said the doctor, as he slipped

the watch into his pocket. “He seems to have mistaken my directions for

taking the physic for the fee. However, it is all right. He owes me an

account, anyway. The chances are that he won’t bring the other watch.

You can’t depend on anything they promise you. About that drink, now?

How did you come to Coralio, Mr. Smith? I was not aware that any boats

except the _Karlsefin_ had arrived for some days.”

The two leaned against the deserted bar; and Madama set out a bottle

without waiting for the doctor’s order. There was no dust on it.

After they had drank twice Smith said:

“You say there were no passengers on the _Karlsefin_, Doc? Are you sure

about that? It seems to me I heard somebody down on the beach say that

there was one or two aboard.”

“They were mistaken, sir. I myself went out and put all hands through a

medical examination, as usual. The _Karlsefin_ sails as soon as she

gets her bananas loaded, which will be about daylight in the morning,

and she got everything ready this afternoon. No, sir, there was no

passenger list. Like that Three-Star? A French schooner landed two

slooploads of it a month ago. If any customs duties on it went to the

distinguished republic of Anchuria you may have my hat. If you won’t

have another, come out and let’s sit in the cool a while. It isn’t

often we exiles get a chance to talk with somebody from the outside

world.”

The doctor brought out another chair to the sidewalk for his new

acquaintance. The two seated themselves.

“You are a man of the world,” said Dr. Gregg; “a man of travel and

experience. Your decision in a matter of ethics and, no doubt, on the

points of equity, ability and professional probity should be of value.

I would be glad if you will listen to the history of a case that I

think stands unique in medical annals.

“About nine years ago, while I was engaged in the practice of medicine

in my native city, I was called to treat a case of contusion of the

skull. I made the diagnosis that a splinter of bone was pressing upon

the brain, and that the surgical operation known as trepanning was

required. However, as the patient was a gentleman of wealth and

position, I called in for consultation Dr.—”

Smith rose from his chair, and laid a hand, soft with apology, upon the

doctor’s shirt sleeve.

“Say, Doc,” he said, solemnly, “I want to hear that story. You’ve got

me interested; and I don’t want to miss the rest of it. I know it’s a

loola by the way it begins; and I want to tell it at the next meeting

of the Barney O’Flynn Association, if you don’t mind. But I’ve got one

or two matters to attend to first. If I get ’em attended to in time

I’ll come right back and hear you spiel the rest before bedtime—is that

right?”

“By all means,” said the doctor, “get your business attended to, and

then return. I shall wait up for you. You see, one of the most

prominent physicians at the consultation diagnosed the trouble as a

blood clot; another said it was an abscess, but I—”

“Don’t tell me now, Doc. Don’t spoil the story. Wait till I come back.

I want to hear it as it runs off the reel—is that right?”

The mountains reached up their bulky shoulders to receive the level

gallop of Apollo’s homing steeds, the day died in the lagoons and in

the shadowed banana groves and in the mangrove swamps, where the great

blue crabs were beginning to crawl to land for their nightly ramble.

And it died, at last, upon the highest peaks. Then the brief twilight,

ephemeral as the flight of a moth, came and went; the Southern Cross

peeped with its topmost eye above a row of palms, and the fire-flies

heralded with their torches the approach of soft-footed night.

In the offing the _Karlsefin_ swayed at anchor, her lights seeming to

penetrate the water to countless fathoms with their shimmering,

lanceolate reflections. The Caribs were busy loading her by means of

the great lighters heaped full from the piles of fruit ranged upon the

shore.

On the sandy beach, with his back against a cocoanut-tree and the stubs

of many cigars lying around him, Smith sat waiting, never relaxing his

sharp gaze in the direction of the steamer.

The incongruous yachtsman had concentrated his interest upon the

innocent fruiter. Twice had he been assured that no passengers had come

to Coralio on board of her. And yet, with a persistence not to be

attributed to an idling voyager, he had appealed the case to the higher

court of his own eyesight. Surprisingly like some gay-coated lizard, he

crouched at the foot of the cocoanut palm, and with the beady, shifting

eyes of the selfsame reptile, sustained his espionage on the

_Karlsefin_.

On the white sands a whiter gig belonging to the yacht was drawn up,

guarded by one of the white-ducked crew. Not far away in a _pulperia_

on the shore-following Calle Grande three other sailors swaggered with

their cues around Coralio’s solitary billiard-table. The boat lay there

as if under orders to be ready for use at any moment. There was in the

atmosphere a hint of expectation, of waiting for something to occur,

which was foreign to the air of Coralio.

Like some passing bird of brilliant plumage, Smith alights on this

palmy shore but to preen his wings for an instant and then to fly away

upon silent pinions. When morning dawned there was no Smith, no waiting

gig, no yacht in the offing. Smith left no intimation of his mission

there, no footprints to show where he had followed the trail of his

mystery on the sands of Coralio that night. He came; he spake his

strange jargon of the asphalt and the cafés; he sat under the

cocoanut-tree, and vanished. The next morning Coralio, Smithless, ate

its fried plantain and said: “The man of pictured clothing went himself

away.” With the _siesta_ the incident passed, yawning, into history.

So, for a time, must Smith pass behind the scenes of the play. He comes

no more to Coralio nor to Doctor Gregg, who sits in vain, wagging his

redundant beard, waiting to enrich his derelict audience with his

moving tale of trepanning and jealousy.

But prosperously to the lucidity of these loose pages, Smith shall

flutter among them again. In the nick of time he shall come to tell us

why he strewed so many anxious cigar stumps around the cocoanut palm

that night. This he must do; for, when he sailed away before the dawn

in his yacht _Rambler_, he carried with him the answer to a riddle so

big and preposterous that few in Anchuria had ventured even to propound

it.

IV

CAUGHT

The plans for the detention of the flying President Miraflores and his

companion at the coast line seemed hardly likely to fail. Dr. Zavalla

himself had gone to the port of Alazan to establish a guard at that

point. At Solitas the Liberal patriot Varras could be depended upon to

keep close watch. Goodwin held himself responsible for the district

about Coralio.

The news of the president’s flight had been disclosed to no one in the

coast towns save trusted members of the ambitious political party that

was desirous of succeeding to power. The telegraph wire running from

San Mateo to the coast had been cut far up on the mountain trail by an

emissary of Zavalla’s. Long before this could be repaired and word

received along it from the capital the fugitives would have reached the

coast and the question of escape or capture been solved.

Goodwin had stationed armed sentinels at frequent intervals along the

shore for a mile in each direction from Coralio. They were instructed

to keep a vigilant lookout during the night to prevent Miraflores from

attempting to embark stealthily by means of some boat or sloop found by

chance at the water’s edge. A dozen patrols walked the streets of

Coralio unsuspected, ready to intercept the truant official should he

show himself there.

Goodwin was very well convinced that no precautions had been

overlooked. He strolled about the streets that bore such high-sounding

names and were but narrow, grass-covered lanes, lending his own aid to

the vigil that had been intrusted to him by Bob Englehart.

The town had begun the tepid round of its nightly diversions. A few

leisurely dandies, clad in white duck, with flowing neckties, and

swinging slim bamboo canes, threaded the grassy by-ways toward the

houses of their favoured señoritas. Those who wooed the art of music

dragged tirelessly at whining concertinas, or fingered lugubrious

guitars at doors and windows. An occasional soldier from the _cuartel_,

with flapping straw hat, without coat or shoes, hurried by, balancing

his long gun like a lance in one hand. From every density of the

foliage the giant tree frogs sounded their loud and irritating clatter.

Further out, where the by-ways perished at the brink of the jungle, the

guttural cries of marauding baboons and the coughing of the alligators

in the black estuaries fractured the vain silence of the wood.

By ten o’clock the streets were deserted. The oil lamps that had

burned, a sickly yellow, at random corners, had been extinguished by

some economical civic agent. Coralio lay sleeping calmly between

toppling mountains and encroaching sea like a stolen babe in the arms

of its abductors. Somewhere over in that tropical darkness—perhaps

already threading the profundities of the alluvial lowlands—the high

adventurer and his mate were moving toward land’s end. The game of

Fox-in-the-Morning should be coming soon to its close.

Goodwin, at his deliberate gait, passed the long, low _cuartel_ where

Coralio’s contingent of Anchuria’s military force slumbered, with its

bare toes pointed heavenward. There was a law that no civilian might

come so near the headquarters of that citadel of war after nine

o’clock, but Goodwin was always forgetting the minor statutes.

“_Quién vive?_” shrieked the sentinel, wrestling prodigiously with his

lengthy musket.

“_Americano_,” growled Goodwin, without turning his head, and passed

on, unhalted.

To the right he turned, and to the left up the street that ultimately

reached the Plaza Nacional. When within the toss of a cigar stump from

the intersecting Street of the Holy Sepulchre, he stopped suddenly in

the pathway.

He saw the form of a tall man, clothed in black and carrying a large

valise, hurry down the cross-street in the direction of the beach. And

Goodwin’s second glance made him aware of a woman at the man’s elbow on

the farther side, who seemed to urge forward, if not even to assist,

her companion in their swift but silent progress. They were no

Coralians, those two.

Goodwin followed at increased speed, but without any of the artful

tactics that are so dear to the heart of the sleuth. The American was

too broad to feel the instinct of the detective. He stood as an agent

for the people of Anchuria, and but for political reasons he would have

demanded then and there the money. It was the design of his party to

secure the imperilled fund, to restore it to the treasury of the

country, and to declare itself in power without bloodshed or

resistance.

The couple halted at the door of the Hotel de los Estranjeros, and the

man struck upon the wood with the impatience of one unused to his entry

being stayed. Madama was long in response; but after a time her light

showed, the door was opened, and the guests housed.

Goodwin stood in the quiet street, lighting another cigar. In two

minutes a faint gleam began to show between the slats of the jalousies

in the upper story of the hotel. “They have engaged rooms,” said

Goodwin to himself. “So, then, their arrangements for sailing have yet

to be made.”

At that moment there came along one Estebán Delgado, a barber, an enemy

to existing government, a jovial plotter against stagnation in any

form. This barber was one of Coralio’s saddest dogs, often remaining

out of doors as late as eleven, post meridian. He was a partisan

Liberal; and he greeted Goodwin with flatulent importance as a brother

in the cause. But he had something important to tell.

“What think you, Don Frank!” he cried, in the universal tone of the

conspirator. “I have to-night shaved _la barba_—what you call the

‘weeskers’ of the _Presidente_ himself, of this countree! Consider! He

sent for me to come. In the poor _casita_ of an old woman he awaited

me—in a verree leetle house in a dark place. _Carramba!_—el Señor

Presidente to make himself thus secret and obscured! I think he desired

not to be known—but, _carajo!_ can you shave a man and not see his

face? This gold piece he gave me, and said it was to be all quite

still. I think, Don Frank, there is what you call a chip over the bug.”

“Have you ever seen President Miraflores before?” asked Goodwin.

“But once,” answered Estebán. “He is tall; and he had weeskers, verree

black and sufficient.”

“Was anyone else present when you shaved him?”

“An old Indian woman, Señor, that belonged with the _casa_, and one

señorita—a ladee of so much beautee!—_ah, Dios!_”

“All right, Estebán,” said Goodwin. “It’s very lucky that you happened

along with your tonsorial information. The new administration will be

likely to remember you for this.”

Then in a few words he made the barber acquainted with the crisis into

which the affairs of the nation had culminated, and instructed him to

remain outside, keeping watch upon the two sides of the hotel that

looked upon the street, and observing whether anyone should attempt to

leave the house by any door or window. Goodwin himself went to the door

through which the guests had entered, opened it and stepped inside.

Madama had returned downstairs from her journey above to see after the

comfort of her lodgers. Her candle stood upon the bar. She was about to

take a thimbleful of rum as a solace for having her rest disturbed. She

looked up without surprise or alarm as her third caller entered.

“Ah! it is the Señor Goodwin. Not often does he honour my poor house by

his presence.”

“I must come oftener,” said Goodwin, with the Goodwin smile. “I hear

that your cognac is the best between Belize to the north and Rio to the

south. Set out the bottle, Madama, and let us have the proof in _un

vasito_ for each of us.”

“My _aguardiente_,” said Madama, with pride, “is the best. It grows, in

beautiful bottles, in the dark places among the banana-trees. _Si,

Señor._ Only at midnight can they be picked by sailor-men who bring

them, before daylight comes, to your back door. Good _aguardiente_ is a

verree difficult fruit to handle, Señor Goodwin.”

Smuggling, in Coralio, was much nearer than competition to being the

life of trade. One spoke of it slyly, yet with a certain conceit, when

it had been well accomplished.

“You have guests in the house to-night,” said Goodwin, laying a silver

dollar upon the counter.

“Why not?” said Madama, counting the change. “Two; but the smallest

while finished to arrive. One señor, not quite old, and one señorita of

sufficient handsomeness. To their rooms they have ascended, not

desiring the to-eat nor the to-drink. Two rooms—_Numero_ 9 and _Numero_

10.”

“I was expecting that gentleman and that lady,” said Goodwin. “I have

important _negocios_ that must be transacted. Will you allow me to see

them?”

“Why not?” sighed Madama, placidly. “Why should not Señor Goodwin

ascend and speak to his friends? _Está bueno._ Room _Numero_ 9 and room

_Numero_ 10.”

Goodwin loosened in his coat pocket the American revolver that he

carried, and ascended the steep, dark stairway.

In the hallway above, the saffron light from a hanging lamp allowed him

to select the gaudy numbers on the doors. He turned the knob of Number

9, entered and closed the door behind him.

If that was Isabel Guilbert seated by the table in that poorly

furnished room, report had failed to do her charms justice. She rested

her head upon one hand. Extreme fatigue was signified in every line of

her figure; and upon her countenance a deep perplexity was written. Her

eyes were gray-irised, and of that mould that seems to have belonged to

the orbs of all the famous queens of hearts. Their whites were

singularly clear and brilliant, concealed above the irises by heavy

horizontal lids, and showing a snowy line below them. Such eyes denote

great nobility, vigour, and, if you can conceive of it, a most generous

selfishness. She looked up when the American entered with an expression

of surprised inquiry, but without alarm.

Goodwin took off his hat and seated himself, with his characteristic

deliberate ease, upon a corner of the table. He held a lighted cigar

between his fingers. He took this familiar course because he was sure

that preliminaries would be wasted upon Miss Guilbert. He knew her

history, and the small part that the conventions had played in it.

“Good evening,” he said. “Now, madame, let us come to business at once.

You will observe that I mention no names, but I know who is in the next

room, and what he carries in that valise. That is the point which

brings me here. I have come to dictate terms of surrender.”

The lady neither moved nor replied, but steadily regarded the cigar in

Goodwin’s hand.

“We,” continued the dictator, thoughtfully regarding the neat buckskin

shoe on his gently swinging foot—“I speak for a considerable majority

of the people—demand the return of the stolen funds belonging to them.

Our terms go very little further than that. They are very simple. As an

accredited spokesman, I promise that our interference will cease if

they are accepted. Give up the money, and you and your companion will

be permitted to proceed wherever you will. In fact, assistance will be

given you in the matter of securing a passage by any outgoing vessel

you may choose. It is on my personal responsibility that I add

congratulations to the gentleman in Number 10 upon his taste in

feminine charms.”

Returning his cigar to his mouth, Goodwin observed her, and saw that

her eyes followed it and rested upon it with icy and significant

concentration. Apparently she had not heard a word he had said. He

understood, tossed the cigar out the window, and, with an amused laugh,

slid from the table to his feet.

“That is better,” said the lady. “It makes it possible for me to listen

to you. For a second lesson in good manners, you might now tell me by

whom I am being insulted.”

“I am sorry,” said Goodwin, leaning one hand on the table, “that my

time is too brief for devoting much of it to a course of etiquette.

Come, now; I appeal to your good sense. You have shown yourself, in

more than one instance, to be well aware of what is to your advantage.

This is an occasion that demands the exercise of your undoubted

intelligence. There is no mystery here. I am Frank Goodwin; and I have

come for the money. I entered this room at a venture. Had I entered the

other I would have had it before now. Do you want it in words? The

gentleman in Number 10 has betrayed a great trust. He has robbed his

people of a large sum, and it is I who will prevent their losing it. I

do not say who that gentleman is; but if I should be forced to see him

and he should prove to be a certain high official of the republic, it

will be my duty to arrest him. The house is guarded. I am offering you

liberal terms. It is not absolutely necessary that I confer personally

with the gentleman in the next room. Bring me the valise containing the

money, and we will call the affair ended.”

The lady arose from her chair and stood for a moment, thinking deeply.

“Do you live here, Mr. Goodwin?” she asked, presently.

“Yes.”

“What is your authority for this intrusion?”

“I am an instrument of the republic. I was advised by wire of the

movements of the—gentleman in Number 10.”

“May I ask you two or three questions? I believe you to be a man more

apt to be truthful than—timid. What sort of a town is this—Coralio, I

think they call it?”

“Not much of a town,” said Goodwin, smiling. “A banana town, as they

run. Grass huts, ’dobes, five or six two-story houses, accommodations

limited, population half-breed Spanish and Indian, Caribs and

blackamoors. No sidewalks to speak of, no amusements. Rather unmoral.

That’s an offhand sketch, of course.”

“Are there any inducements, say in a social or in a business way, for

people to reside here?”

“Oh, yes,” answered Goodwin, smiling broadly. “There are no afternoon

teas, no hand-organs, no department stores—and there is no extradition

treaty.”

“He told me,” went on the lady, speaking as if to herself, and with a

slight frown, “that there were towns on this coast of beauty and

importance; that there was a pleasing social order—especially an

American colony of cultured residents.”

“There is an American colony,” said Goodwin, gazing at her in some

wonder. “Some of the members are all right. Some are fugitives from

justice from the States. I recall two exiled bank presidents, one army

paymaster under a cloud, a couple of manslayers, and a widow—arsenic, I

believe, was the suspicion in her case. I myself complete the colony,

but, as yet, I have not distinguished myself by any particular crime.”

“Do not lose hope,” said the lady, dryly; “I see nothing in your

actions to-night to guarantee you further obscurity. Some mistake has

been made; I do not know just where. But _him_ you shall not disturb

to-night. The journey has fatigued him so that he has fallen asleep, I

think, in his clothes. You talk of stolen money! I do not understand

you. Some mistake has been made. I will convince you. Remain where you

are and I will bring you the valise that you seem to covet so, and show

it to you.”

She moved toward the closed door that connected the two rooms, but

stopped, and half turned and bestowed upon Goodwin a grave, searching

look that ended in a quizzical smile.

“You force my door,” she said, “and you follow your ruffianly behaviour

with the basest accusations; and yet”—she hesitated, as if to

reconsider what she was about to say—“and yet—it is a puzzling thing—I

am sure there has been some mistake.”

She took a step toward the door, but Goodwin stayed her by a light

touch upon her arm. I have said before that women turned to look at him

in the streets. He was the viking sort of man, big, good-looking, and

with an air of kindly truculence. She was dark and proud, glowing or

pale as her mood moved her. I do not know if Eve were light or dark,

but if such a woman had stood in the garden I know that the apple would

have been eaten. This woman was to be Goodwin’s fate, and he did not

know it; but he must have felt the first throes of destiny, for, as he

faced her, the knowledge of what report named her turned bitter in his

throat.

“If there has been any mistake,” he said, hotly, “it was yours. I do

not blame the man who has lost his country, his honour, and is about to

lose the poor consolation of his stolen riches as much as I blame you,

for, by Heaven! I can very well see how he was brought to it. I can

understand, and pity him. It is such women as you that strew this

degraded coast with wretched exiles, that make men forget their trusts,

that drag—”

The lady interrupted him with a weary gesture.

“There is no need to continue your insults,” she said, coldly. “I do

not understand what you are saying, nor do I know what mad blunder you

are making; but if the inspection of the contents of a gentleman’s

portmanteau will rid me of you, let us delay it no longer.”

She passed quickly and noiselessly into the other room, and returned

with the heavy leather valise, which she handed to the American with an

air of patient contempt.

Goodwin set the valise quickly upon the table and began to unfasten the

straps. The lady stood by, with an expression of infinite scorn and

weariness upon her face.

The valise opened wide to a powerful, sidelong wrench. Goodwin dragged

out two or three articles of clothing, exposing the bulk of its

contents—package after package of tightly packed United States bank and

treasury notes of large denomination. Reckoning from the high figures

written upon the paper bands that bound them, the total must have come

closely upon the hundred thousand mark.

Goodwin glanced swiftly at the woman, and saw, with surprise and a

thrill of pleasure that he wondered at, that she had experienced an

unmistakable shock. Her eyes grew wide, she gasped, and leaned heavily

against the table. She had been ignorant, then, he inferred, that her

companion had looted the government treasury. But why, he angrily asked

himself, should he be so well pleased to think this wandering and

unscrupulous singer not so black as report had painted her?

A noise in the other room startled them both. The door swung open, and

a tall, elderly, dark complexioned man, recently shaven, hurried into

the room.

All the pictures of President Miraflores represent him as the possessor

of a luxuriant supply of dark and carefully tended whiskers; but the

story of the barber, Estebán, had prepared Goodwin for the change.

The man stumbled in from the dark room, his eyes blinking at the

lamplight, and heavy from sleep.

“What does this mean?” he demanded in excellent English, with a keen

and perturbed look at the American—“robbery?”

“Very near it,” answered Goodwin. “But I rather think I’m in time to

prevent it. I represent the people to whom this money belongs, and I

have come to convey it back to them.” He thrust his hand into a pocket

of his loose, linen coat.

The other man’s hand went quickly behind him.

“Don’t draw,” called Goodwin, sharply; “I’ve got you covered from my

pocket.”

The lady stepped forward, and laid one hand upon the shoulder of her

hesitating companion. She pointed to the table. “Tell me the truth—the

truth,” she said, in a low voice. “Whose money is that?”

The man did not answer. He gave a deep, long-drawn sigh, leaned and

kissed her on the forehead, stepped back into the other room and closed

the door.

Goodwin foresaw his purpose, and jumped for the door, but the report of

the pistol echoed as his hand touched the knob. A heavy fall followed,

and some one swept him aside and struggled into the room of the fallen

man.

A desolation, thought Goodwin, greater than that derived from the loss

of cavalier and gold must have been in the heart of the enchantress to

have wrung from her, in that moment, the cry of one turning to the

all-forgiving, all-comforting earthly consoler—to have made her call

out from that bloody and dishonoured room—“Oh, mother, mother, mother!”

But there was an alarm outside. The barber, Estebán, at the sound of

the shot, had raised his voice; and the shot itself had aroused half

the town. A pattering of feet came up the street, and official orders

rang out on the still air. Goodwin had a duty to perform. Circumstances

had made him the custodian of his adopted country’s treasure. Swiftly

cramming the money into the valise, he closed it, leaned far out of the

window and dropped it into a thick orange-tree in the little inclosure

below.

They will tell you in Coralio, as they delight in telling the stranger,

of the conclusion of that tragic flight. They will tell you how the

upholders of the law came apace when the alarm was sounded—the

_Comandante_ in red slippers and a jacket like a head waiter’s and

girded sword, the soldiers with their interminable guns, followed by

outnumbering officers struggling into their gold lace and epaulettes;

the barefooted policemen (the only capables in the lot), and ruffled

citizens of every hue and description.

They say that the countenance of the dead man was marred sadly by the

effects of the shot; but he was identified as the fallen president by

both Goodwin and the barber Estebán. On the next morning messages began

to come over the mended telegraph wire; and the story of the flight

from the capital was given out to the public. In San Mateo the

revolutionary party had seized the sceptre of government, without

opposition, and the _vivas_ of the mercurial populace quickly effaced

the interest belonging to the unfortunate Miraflores.

They will relate to you how the new government sifted the towns and

raked the roads to find the valise containing Anchuria’s surplus

capital, which the president was known to have carried with him, but

all in vain. In Coralio Señor Goodwin himself led the searching party

which combed that town as carefully as a woman combs her hair; but the

money was not found.

So they buried the dead man, without honours, back of the town near the

little bridge that spans the mangrove swamp; and for a _real_ a boy

will show you his grave. They say that the old woman in whose hut the

barber shaved the president placed the wooden slab at his head, and

burned the inscription upon it with a hot iron.

You will hear also that Señor Goodwin, like a tower of strength,

shielded Doña Isabel Guilbert through those subsequent distressful

days; and that his scruples as to her past career (if he had any)

vanished; and her adventuresome waywardness (if she had any) left her,

and they were wedded and were happy.

The American built a home on a little foothill near the town. It is a

conglomerate structure of native woods that, exported, would be worth a

fortune, and of brick, palm, glass, bamboo and adobe. There is a

paradise of nature about it; and something of the same sort within. The

natives speak of its interior with hands uplifted in admiration. There

are floors polished like mirrors and covered with hand-woven Indian

rugs of silk fibre, tall ornaments and pictures, musical instruments

and papered walls—“figure-it-to-yourself!” they exclaim.

But they cannot tell you in Coralio (as you shall learn) what became of

the money that Frank Goodwin dropped into the orange-tree. But that

shall come later; for the palms are fluttering in the breeze, bidding

us to sport and gaiety.

V

CUPID’S EXILE NUMBER TWO

The United States of America, after looking over its stock of consular

timber, selected Mr. John De Graffenreid Atwood, of Dalesburg, Alabama,

for a successor to Willard Geddie, resigned.

Without prejudice to Mr. Atwood, it will have to be acknowledged that,

in this instance, it was the man who sought the office. As with the

self-banished Geddie, it was nothing less than the artful smiles of

lovely woman that had driven Johnny Atwood to the desperate expedient

of accepting office under a despised Federal Government so that he

might go far, far away and never see again the false, fair face that

had wrecked his young life. The consulship at Coralio seemed to offer a

retreat sufficiently removed and romantic enough to inject the

necessary drama into the pastoral scenes of Dalesburg life.

It was while playing the part of Cupid’s exile that Johnny added his

handiwork to the long list of casualties along the Spanish Main by his

famous manipulation of the shoe market, and his unparalleled feat of

elevating the most despised and useless weed in his own country from

obscurity to be a valuable product in international commerce.

The trouble began, as trouble often begins instead of ending, with a

romance. In Dalesburg there was a man named Elijah Hemstetter, who kept

a general store. His family consisted of one daughter called Rosine, a

name that atoned much for “Hemstetter.” This young woman was possessed

of plentiful attractions, so that the young men of the community were

agitated in their bosoms. Among the more agitated was Johnny, the son

of Judge Atwood, who lived in the big colonial mansion on the edge of

Dalesburg.

It would seem that the desirable Rosine should have been pleased to

return the affection of an Atwood, a name honoured all over the state

long before and since the war. It does seem that she should have gladly

consented to have been led into that stately but rather empty colonial

mansion. But not so. There was a cloud on the horizon, a threatening,

cumulus cloud, in the shape of a lively and shrewd young farmer in the

neighbourhood who dared to enter the lists as a rival to the high-born

Atwood.

One night Johnny propounded to Rosine a question that is considered of

much importance by the young of the human species. The accessories were

all there—moonlight, oleanders, magnolias, the mock-bird’s song.

Whether or no the shadow of Pinkney Dawson, the prosperous young

farmer, came between them on that occasion is not known; but Rosine’s

answer was unfavourable. Mr. John De Graffenreid Atwood bowed till his

hat touched the lawn grass, and went away with his head high, but with

a sore wound in his pedigree and heart. A Hemstetter refuse an Atwood!

Zounds!

Among other accidents of that year was a Democratic president. Judge

Atwood was a warhorse of Democracy. Johnny persuaded him to set the

wheels moving for some foreign appointment. He would go away—away.

Perhaps in years to come Rosine would think how true, how faithful his

love had been, and would drop a tear—maybe in the cream she would be

skimming for Pink Dawson’s breakfast.

The wheels of politics revolved; and Johnny was appointed consul to

Coralio. Just before leaving he dropped in at Hemstetter’s to say

good-bye. There was a queer, pinkish look about Rosine’s eyes; and had

the two been alone, the United States might have had to cast about for

another consul. But Pink Dawson was there, of course, talking about his

400-acre orchard, and the three-mile alfalfa tract, and the 200-acre

pasture. So Johnny shook hands with Rosine as coolly as if he were only

going to run up to Montgomery for a couple of days. They had the royal

manner when they chose, those Atwoods.

“If you happen to strike anything in the way of a good investment down

there, Johnny,” said Pink Dawson, “just let me know, will you? I reckon

I could lay my hands on a few extra thousands ’most any time for a

profitable deal.”

“Certainly, Pink,” said Johnny, pleasantly. “If I strike anything of

the sort I’ll let you in with pleasure.”

So Johnny went down to Mobile and took a fruit steamer for the coast of

Anchuria.

When the new consul arrived in Coralio the strangeness of the scenes

diverted him much. He was only twenty-two; and the grief of youth is

not worn like a garment as it is by older men. It has its seasons when

it reigns; and then it is unseated for a time by the assertion of the

keen senses.

Billy Keogh and Johnny seemed to conceive a mutual friendship at once.

Keogh took the new consul about town and presented him to the handful

of Americans and the smaller number of French and Germans who made up

the “foreign” contingent. And then, of course, he had to be more

formally introduced to the native officials, and have his credentials

transmitted through an interpreter.

There was something about the young Southerner that the sophisticated

Keogh liked. His manner was simple almost to boyishness; but he

possessed the cool carelessness of a man of far greater age and

experience. Neither uniforms nor titles, red tape nor foreign

languages, mountains nor sea weighed upon his spirits. He was heir to

all the ages, an Atwood, of Dalesburg; and you might know every thought

conceived in his bosom.

Geddie came down to the consulate to explain the duties and workings of

the office. He and Keogh tried to interest the new consul in their

description of the work that his government expected him to perform.

“It’s all right,” said Johnny from the hammock that he had set up as

the official reclining place. “If anything turns up that has to be done

I’ll let you fellows do it. You can’t expect a Democrat to work during

his first term of holding office.”

“You might look over these headings,” suggested Geddie, “of the

different lines of exports you will have to keep account of. The fruit

is classified; and there are the valuable woods, coffee, rubber—”

“That last account sounds all right,” interrupted Mr. Atwood. “Sounds

as if it could be stretched. I want to buy a new flag, a monkey, a

guitar and a barrel of pineapples. Will that rubber account stretch

over ’em?”

“That’s merely statistics,” said Geddie, smiling. “The expense account

is what you want. It is supposed to have a slight elasticity. The

‘stationery’ items are sometimes carelessly audited by the State

Department.”

“We’re wasting our time,” said Keogh. “This man was born to hold

office. He penetrates to the root of the art at one step of his eagle

eye. The true genius of government shows its hand in every word of his

speech.”

“I didn’t take this job with any intention of working,” explained

Johnny, lazily. “I wanted to go somewhere in the world where they

didn’t talk about farms. There are none here, are there?”

“Not the kind you are acquainted with,” answered the ex-consul. “There

is no such art here as agriculture. There never was a plow or a reaper

within the boundaries of Anchuria.”

“This is the country for me,” murmured the consul, and immediately he

fell asleep.

The cheerful tintypist pursued his intimacy with Johnny in spite of

open charges that he did so to obtain a preëmption on a seat in that

coveted spot, the rear gallery of the consulate. But whether his

designs were selfish or purely friendly, Keogh achieved that desirable

privilege. Few were the nights on which the two could not be found

reposing there in the sea breeze, with their heels on the railing, and

the cigars and brandy conveniently near.

One evening they sat thus, mainly silent, for their talk had dwindled

before the stilling influence of an unusual night.

There was a great, full moon; and the sea was mother-of-pearl. Almost

every sound was hushed, for the air was but faintly stirring; and the

town lay panting, waiting for the night to cool. Offshore lay the fruit

steamer _Andador_, of the Vesuvius line, full-laden and scheduled to

sail at six in the morning. There were no loiterers on the beach. So

bright was the moonlight that the two men could see the small pebbles

shining on the beach where the gentle surf wetted them.

Then down the coast, tacking close to shore, slowly swam a little

sloop, white-winged like some snowy sea fowl. Its course lay within

twenty points of the wind’s eye; so it veered in and out again in long,

slow strokes like the movements of a graceful skater.

Again the tactics of its crew brought it close in shore, this time

nearly opposite the consulate; and then there blew from the sloop clear

and surprising notes as if from a horn of elfland. A fairy bugle it

might have been, sweet and silvery and unexpected, playing with spirit

the familiar air of “Home, Sweet Home.”

It was a scene set for the land of the lotus. The authority of the sea

and the tropics, the mystery that attends unknown sails, and the

prestige of drifting music on moonlit waters gave it an anodynous

charm. Johnny Atwood felt it, and thought of Dalesburg; but as soon as

Keogh’s mind had arrived at a theory concerning the peripatetic solo he

sprang to the railing, and his ear-rending yawp fractured the silence

of Coralio like a cannon shot.

“Mel-lin-ger a-hoy!”

The sloop was now on its outward tack; but from it came a clear,

answering hail:

“Good-bye, Billy … go-ing home—bye!”

The _Andador_ was the sloop’s destination. No doubt some passenger with

a sailing permit from some up-the-coast point had come down in this

sloop to catch the regular fruit steamer on its return trip. Like a

coquettish pigeon the little boat tacked on its eccentric way until at

last its white sail was lost to sight against the larger bulk of the

fruiter’s side.

“That’s old H. P. Mellinger,” explained Keogh, dropping back into his

chair. “He’s going back to New York. He was private secretary of the

late hot-foot president of this grocery and fruit stand that they call

a country. His job’s over now; and I guess old Mellinger is glad.”

“Why does he disappear to music, like Zo-zo, the magic queen?” asked

Johnny. “Just to show ’em that he doesn’t care?”

“That noise you heard is a phonograph,” said Keogh. “I sold him that.

Mellinger had a graft in this country that was the only thing of its

kind in the world. The tooting machine saved it for him once, and he

always carried it around with him afterward.”

“Tell me about it,” demanded Johnny, betraying interest.

“I’m no disseminator of narratives,” said Keogh. “I can use language

for purposes of speech; but when I attempt a discourse the words come

out as they will, and they may make sense when they strike the

atmosphere, or they may not.”

“I want to hear about that graft,” persisted Johnny. “You’ve got no

right to refuse. I’ve told you all about every man, woman and hitching

post in Dalesburg.”

“You shall hear it,” said Keogh. “I said my instincts of narrative were

perplexed. Don’t you believe it. It’s an art I’ve acquired along with

many other of the graces and sciences.”

VI

THE PHONOGRAPH AND THE GRAFT

“What was this graft?” asked Johnny, with the impatience of the great

public to whom tales are told.

“’Tis contrary to art and philosophy to give you the information,” said

Keogh, calmly. “The art of narrative consists in concealing from your

audience everything it wants to know until after you expose your

favourite opinions on topics foreign to the subject. A good story is

like a bitter pill with the sugar coating inside of it. I will begin,

if you please, with a horoscope located in the Cherokee Nation; and end

with a moral tune on the phonograph.

“Me and Henry Horsecollar brought the first phonograph to this country.

Henry was a quarter-breed, quarter-back Cherokee, educated East in the

idioms of football, and West in contraband whisky, and a gentleman, the

same as you and me. He was easy and romping in his ways; a man about

six foot, with a kind of rubber-tire movement. Yes, he was a little man

about five foot five, or five foot eleven. He was what you would call a

medium tall man of average smallness. Henry had quit college once, and

the Muscogee jail three times—the last-named institution on account of

introducing and selling whisky in the territories. Henry Horsecollar

never let any cigar stores come up and stand behind him. He didn’t

belong to that tribe of Indians.

“Henry and me met at Texarkana, and figured out this phonograph scheme.

He had $360 which came to him out of a land allotment in the

reservation. I had run down from Little Rock on account of a

distressful scene I had witnessed on the street there. A man stood on a

box and passed around some gold watches, screw case, stem-winders,

Elgin movement, very elegant. Twenty bucks they cost you over the

counter. At three dollars the crowd fought for the tickers. The man

happened to find a valise full of them handy, and he passed them out

like putting hot biscuits on a plate. The backs were hard to unscrew,

but the crowd put its ear to the case, and they ticked mollifying and

agreeable. Three of these watches were genuine tickers; the rest were

only kickers. Hey? Why, empty cases with one of them horny black bugs

that fly around electric lights in ’em. Them bugs kick off minutes and

seconds industrious and beautiful. So, this man I was speaking of

cleaned up $288; and then he went away, because he knew that when it

came time to wind watches in Little Rock an entomologist would be

needed, and he wasn’t one.

“So, as I say, Henry had $360, and I had $288. The idea of introducing

the phonograph to South America was Henry’s; but I took to it freely,

being fond of machinery of all kinds.

“‘The Latin races,’ says Henry, explaining easy in the idioms he

learned at college, ‘are peculiarly adapted to be victims of the

phonograph. They have the artistic temperament. They yearn for music

and color and gaiety. They give wampum to the hand-organ man and the

four-legged chicken in the tent when they’re months behind with the

grocery and the bread-fruit tree.’

“‘Then,’ says I, ‘we’ll export canned music to the Latins; but I’m

mindful of Mr. Julius Cæsar’s account of ’em where he says: “_Omnia

Gallia in tres partes divisa est_;” which is the same as to say, “We

will need all of our gall in devising means to tree them parties.”’

“I hated to make a show of education; but I was disinclined to be

overdone in syntax by a mere Indian, a member of a race to which we owe

nothing except the land on which the United States is situated.

“We bought a fine phonograph in Texarkana—one of the best make—and half

a trunkful of records. We packed up, and took the T. and P. for New

Orleans. From that celebrated centre of molasses and disfranchised coon

songs we took a steamer for South America.

“We landed at Solitas, forty miles up the coast from here. ’Twas a

palatable enough place to look at. The houses were clean and white; and

to look at ’em stuck around among the scenery they reminded you of

hard-boiled eggs served with lettuce. There was a block of skyscraper

mountains in the suburbs; and they kept pretty quiet, like they had

crept up there and were watching the town. And the sea was remarking

‘Sh-sh-sh’ on the beach; and now and then a ripe cocoanut would drop

kerblip in the sand; and that was all there was doing. Yes, I judge

that town was considerably on the quiet. I judge that after Gabriel

quits blowing his horn, and the car starts, with Philadelphia swinging

to the last strap, and Pine Gully, Arkansas, hanging onto the rear

step, this town of Solitas will wake up and ask if anybody spoke.

“The captain went ashore with us, and offered to conduct what he seemed

to like to call the obsequies. He introduced Henry and me to the United

States Consul, and a roan man, the head of the Department of Mercenary

and Licentious Dispositions, the way it read upon his sign.

“‘I touch here again a week from to-day,’ says the captain.

“‘By that time,’ we told him, ‘we’ll be amassing wealth in the interior

towns with our galvanized prima donna and correct imitations of Sousa’s

band excavating a march from a tin mine.’

“‘Ye’ll not,’ says the captain. ‘Ye’ll be hypnotized. Any gentleman in

the audience who kindly steps upon the stage and looks this country in

the eye will be converted to the hypothesis that he’s but a fly in the

Elgin creamery. Ye’ll be standing knee deep in the surf waiting for me,

and your machine for making Hamburger steak out of the hitherto

respected art of music will be playing “There’s no place like home.”’

“Henry skinned a twenty off his roll, and received from the Bureau of

Mercenary Dispositions a paper bearing a red seal and a dialect story,

and no change.

“Then we got the consul full of red wine, and struck him for a

horoscope. He was a thin, youngish kind of man, I should say past

fifty, sort of French-Irish in his affections, and puffed up with

disconsolation. Yes, he was a flattened kind of a man, in whom drink

lay stagnant, inclined to corpulence and misery. Yes, I think he was a

kind of Dutchman, being very sad and genial in his ways.

“‘The marvelous invention,’ he says, ‘entitled the phonograph, has

never invaded these shores. The people have never heard it. They would

not believe it if they should. Simple-hearted children of nature,

progress has never condemned them to accept the work of a can-opener as

an overture, and rag-time might incite them to a bloody revolution. But

you can try the experiment. The best chance you have is that the

populace may not wake up when you play. There’s two ways,’ says the

consul, ‘they may take it. They may become inebriated with attention,

like an Atlanta colonel listening to “Marching Through Georgia,” or

they will get excited and transpose the key of the music with an axe

and yourselves into a dungeon. In the latter case,’ says the consul,

‘I’ll do my duty by cabling to the State Department, and I’ll wrap the

Stars and Stripes around you when you come to be shot, and threaten

them with the vengeance of the greatest gold export and financial

reserve nation on earth. The flag is full of bullet holes now,’ says

the consul, ‘made in that way. Twice before,’ says the consul, ‘I have

cabled our government for a couple of gunboats to protect American

citizens. The first time the Department sent me a pair of gum boots.

The other time was when a man named Pease was going to be executed

here. They referred that appeal to the Secretary of Agriculture. Let us

now disturb the señor behind the bar for a subsequence of the red

wine.’

“Thus soliloquized the consul of Solitas to me and Henry Horsecollar.

“But, notwithstanding, we hired a room that afternoon in the Calle de

los Angeles, the main street that runs along the shore, and put our

trunks there. ’Twas a good-sized room, dark and cheerful, but small.

’Twas on a various street, diversified by houses and conservatory

plants. The peasantry of the city passed to and fro on the fine

pasturage between the sidewalks. ’Twas, for the world, like an opera

chorus when the Royal Kafoozlum is about to enter.

“We were rubbing the dust off the machine and getting fixed to start

business the next day, when a big, fine-looking white man in white

clothes stopped at the door and looked in. We extended the invitations,

and he walked inside and sized us up. He was chewing a long cigar, and

wrinkling his eyes, meditative, like a girl trying to decide which

dress to wear to the party.

“‘New York?’ he says to me finally.

“‘Originally, and from time to time,’ I says. ‘Hasn’t it rubbed off

yet?’

“‘It’s simple,’ says he, ‘when you know how. It’s the fit of the vest.

They don’t cut vests right anywhere else. Coats, maybe, but not vests.’

“The white man looks at Henry Horsecollar and hesitates.

“‘Injun,’ says Henry; ‘tame Injun.’

“‘Mellinger,’ says the man—‘Homer P. Mellinger. Boys, you’re

confiscated. You’re babes in the wood without a chaperon or referee,

and it’s my duty to start you going. I’ll knock out the props and

launch you proper in the pellucid waters of this tropical mud puddle.

You’ll have to be christened, and if you’ll come with me I’ll break a

bottle of wine across your bows, according to Hoyle.’

“Well, for two days Homer P. Mellinger did the honors. That man cut ice

in Anchuria. He was It. He was the Royal Kafoozlum. If me and Henry was

babes in the wood, he was a Robin Redbreast from the topmost bough. Him

and me and Henry Horsecollar locked arms, and toted that phonograph

around, and had wassail and diversions. Everywhere we found doors open

we went inside and set the machine going, and Mellinger called upon the

people to observe the artful music and his two lifelong friends, the

Señors Americanos. The opera chorus was agitated with esteem, and

followed us from house to house. There was a different kind of drink to

be had with every tune. The natives had acquirements of a pleasant

thing in the way of a drink that gums itself to the recollection. They

chop off the end of a green cocoanut, and pour in on the juice of it

French brandy and other adjuvants. We had them and other things.

“Mine and Henry’s money was counterfeit. Everything was on Homer P.

Mellinger. That man could find rolls of bills concealed in places on

his person where Hermann the Wizard couldn’t have conjured out a rabbit

or an omelette. He could have founded universities, and made orchid

collections, and then had enough left to purchase the colored vote of

his country. Henry and me wondered what his graft was. One evening he

told us.

“‘Boys,’ said he, ‘I’ve deceived you. You think I’m a painted

butterfly; but in fact I’m the hardest worked man in this country. Ten

years ago I landed on its shores; and two years ago on the point of its

jaw. Yes, I guess I can get the decision over this ginger cake

commonwealth at the end of any round I choose. I’ll confide in you

because you are my countrymen and guests, even if you have assaulted my

adopted shores with the worst system of noises ever set to music.

“‘My job is private secretary to the president of this republic; and my

duties are running it. I’m not headlined in the bills, but I’m the

mustard in the salad dressing just the same. There isn’t a law goes

before Congress, there isn’t a concession granted, there isn’t an

import duty levied but what H. P. Mellinger he cooks and seasons it. In

the front office I fill the president’s inkstand and search visiting

statesmen for dirks and dynamite; but in the back room I dictate the

policy of the government. You’d never guess in the world how I got my

pull. It’s the only graft of its kind on earth. I’ll put you wise. You

remember the old top-liner in the copy book—“Honesty is the Best

Policy”? That’s it. I’m working honesty for a graft. I’m the only

honest man in the republic. The government knows it; the people know

it; the boodlers know it; the foreign investors know it. I make the

government keep its faith. If a man is promised a job he gets it. If

outside capital buys a concession it gets the goods. I run a monopoly

of square dealing here. There’s no competition. If Colonel Diogenes

were to flash his lantern in this precinct he’d have my address inside

of two minutes. There isn’t big money in it, but it’s a sure thing, and

lets a man sleep of nights.’

“Thus Homer P. Mellinger made oration to me and Henry Horsecollar. And,

later, he divested himself of this remark:

“‘Boys, I’m to hold a _soirée_ this evening with a gang of leading

citizens, and I want your assistance. You bring the musical corn

sheller and give the affair the outside appearance of a function.

There’s important business on hand, but it mustn’t show. I can talk to

you people. I’ve been pained for years on account of not having anybody

to blow off and brag to. I get homesick sometimes, and I’d swap the

entire perquisites of office for just one hour to have a stein and a

caviare sandwich somewhere on Thirty-fourth Street, and stand and watch

the street cars go by, and smell the peanut roaster at old Giuseppe’s

fruit stand.’

“‘Yes,’ said I, ‘there’s fine caviare at Billy Renfrew’s café, corner

of Thirty-fourth and—’

“‘God knows it,’ interrupts Mellinger, ‘and if you’d told me you knew

Billy Renfrew I’d have invented tons of ways of making you happy. Billy

was my side-kicker in New York. There is a man who never knew what

crooked was. Here I am working Honesty for a graft, but that man loses

money on it. Carrambos! I get sick at times of this country.

Everything’s rotten. From the executive down to the coffee pickers,

they’re plotting to down each other and skin their friends. If a mule

driver takes off his hat to an official, that man figures it out that

he’s a popular idol, and sets his pegs to stir up a revolution and

upset the administration. It’s one of my little chores as private

secretary to smell out these revolutions and affix the kibosh before

they break out and scratch the paint off the government property.

That’s why I’m down here now in this mildewed coast town. The governor

of the district and his crew are plotting to uprise. I’ve got every one

of their names, and they’re invited to listen to the phonograph

to-night, compliments of H. P. M. That’s the way I’ll get them in a

bunch, and things are on the programme to happen to them.’

“We three were sitting at table in the cantina of the Purified Saints.

Mellinger poured out wine, and was looking some worried; I was

thinking.

“‘They’re a sharp crowd,’ he says, kind of fretful. ‘They’re

capitalized by a foreign syndicate after rubber, and they’re loaded to

the muzzle for bribing. I’m sick,’ goes on Mellinger, ‘of comic opera.

I want to smell East River and wear suspenders again. At times I feel

like throwing up my job, but I’m d——n fool enough to be sort of proud

of it. “There’s Mellinger,” they say here. “_Por Dios!_ you can’t touch

him with a million.” I’d like to take that record back and show it to

Billy Renfrew some day; and that tightens my grip whenever I see a fat

thing that I could corral just by winking one eye—and losing my graft.

By ——, they can’t monkey with me. They know it. What money I get I make

honest and spend it. Some day I’ll make a pile and go back and eat

caviare with Billy. To-night I’ll show you how to handle a bunch of

corruptionists. I’ll show them what Mellinger, private secretary, means

when you spell it with the cotton and tissue paper off.’

“Mellinger appears shaky, and breaks his glass against the neck of the

bottle.

“I says to myself, ‘White man, if I’m not mistaken there’s been a bait

laid out where the tail of your eye could see it.’

“That night, according to arrangements, me and Henry took the

phonograph to a room in a ’dobe house in a dirty side street, where the

grass was knee high. ’Twas a long room, lit with smoky oil lamps. There

was plenty of chairs, and a table at the back end. We set the

phonograph on the table. Mellinger was there, walking up and down,

disturbed in his predicaments. He chewed cigars and spat ’em out, and

he bit the thumb nail of his left hand.

“By and by the invitations to the musicale came sliding in by pairs and

threes and spade flushes. Their colour was of a diversity, running from

a three-days’ smoked meerschaum to a patent-leather polish. They were

as polite as wax, being devastated with enjoyments to give Señor

Mellinger the good evenings. I understood their Spanish talk—I ran a

pumping engine two years in a Mexican silver mine, and had it pat—but I

never let on.

“Maybe fifty of ’em had come, and was seated, when in slid the king

bee, the governor of the district. Mellinger met him at the door, and

escorted him to the grand stand. When I saw that Latin man I knew that

Mellinger, private secretary, had all the dances on his card taken.

That was a big, squashy man, the colour of a rubber overshoe, and he

had an eye like a head waiter’s.

“Mellinger explained, fluent, in the Castilian idioms, that his soul

was disconcerted with joy at introducing to his respected friends

America’s greatest invention, the wonder of the age. Henry got the cue

and run on an elegant brass-band record and the festivities became

initiated. The governor man had a bit of English under his hat, and

when the music was choked off he says:

“‘Ver-r-ree fine. _Gr-r-r-r-racias_, the American gentleemen, the so

esplendeed moosic as to playee.’

“The table was a long one, and Henry and me sat at the end of it next

the wall. The governor sat at the other end. Homer P. Mellinger stood

at the side of it. I was just wondering how Mellinger was going to

handle his crowd, when the home talent suddenly opened the services.

“That governor man was suitable for uprisings and policies. I judge he

was a ready kind of man, who took his own time. Yes, he was full of

attention and immediateness. He leaned his hands on the table and

imposed his face toward the secretary man.

“‘Do the American señors understand Spanish?’ he asks in his native

accents.

“‘They do not,’ says Mellinger.

“‘Then listen,’ goes on the Latin man, prompt. ‘The musics are of

sufficient prettiness, but not of necessity. Let us speak of business.

I well know why we are here, since I observe my compatriots. You had a

whisper yesterday, Señor Mellinger, of our proposals. To-night we will

speak out. We know that you stand in the president’s favour, and we

know your influence. The government will be changed. We know the worth

of your services. We esteem your friendship and aid so much

that’—Mellinger raises his hand, but the governor man bottles him up.

‘Do not speak until I have done.’

“The governor man then draws a package wrapped in paper from his

pocket, and lays it on the table by Mellinger’s hand.

“‘In that you will find fifty thousand dollars in money of your

country. You can do nothing against us, but you can be worth that for

us. Go back to the capital and obey our instructions. Take that money

now. We trust you. You will find with it a paper giving in detail the

work you will be expected to do for us. Do not have the unwiseness to

refuse.’

“The governor man paused, with his eyes fixed on Mellinger, full of

expressions and observances. I looked at Mellinger, and was glad Billy

Renfrew couldn’t see him then. The sweat was popping out on his

forehead, and he stood dumb, tapping the little package with the ends

of his fingers. The colorado-maduro gang was after his graft. He had

only to change his politics, and stuff five fingers in his inside

pocket.

“Henry whispers to me and wants the pause in the programme interpreted.

I whisper back: ‘H. P. is up against a bribe, senator’s size, and the

coons have got him going.’ I saw Mellinger’s hand moving closer to the

package. ‘He’s weakening,’ I whispered to Henry. ‘We’ll remind him,’

says Henry, ‘of the peanut-roaster on Thirty-fourth Street, New York.’

“Henry stooped down and got a record from the basketful we’d brought,

slid it in the phonograph, and started her off. It was a cornet solo,

very neat and beautiful, and the name of it was ‘Home, Sweet Home.’ Not

one of them fifty odd men in the room moved while it was playing, and

the governor man kept his eyes steady on Mellinger. I saw Mellinger’s

head go up little by little, and his hand came creeping away from the

package. Not until the last note sounded did anybody stir. And then

Homer P. Mellinger takes up the bundle of boodle and slams it in the

governor man’s face.

“‘That’s my answer,’ says Mellinger, private secretary, ‘and there’ll

be another in the morning. I have proofs of conspiracy against every

man of you. The show is over, gentlemen.’

“‘There’s one more act,’ puts in the governor man. ‘You are a servant,

I believe, employed by the president to copy letters and answer raps at

the door. I am governor here. _Señores_, I call upon you in the name of

the cause to seize this man.’

“That brindled gang of conspirators shoved back their chairs and

advanced in force. I could see where Mellinger had made a mistake in

massing his enemy so as to make a grand-stand play. I think he made

another one, too; but we can pass that, Mellinger’s idea of a graft and

mine being different, according to estimations and points of view.

“There was only one window and door in that room, and they were in the

front end. Here was fifty odd Latin men coming in a bunch to obstruct

the legislation of Mellinger. You may say there were three of us, for

me and Henry, simultaneous, declared New York City and the Cherokee

Nation in sympathy with the weaker party.

“Then it was that Henry Horsecollar rose to a point of disorder and

intervened, showing, admirable, the advantages of education as applied

to the American Indian’s natural intellect and native refinement. He

stood up and smoothed back his hair on each side with his hands as you

have seen little girls do when they play.

“‘Get behind me, both of you,’ says Henry.

“‘What’s it to be, chief?’ I asked.

“‘I’m going to buck centre,’ says Henry, in his football idioms. ‘There

isn’t a tackle in the lot of them. Follow me close, and rush the game.’

“Then that cultured Red Man exhaled an arrangement of sounds with his

mouth that made the Latin aggregation pause, with thoughtfulness and

hesitations. The matter of his proclamation seemed to be a co-operation

of the Carlisle war-whoop with the Cherokee college yell. He went at

the chocolate team like a bean out of a little boy’s nigger shooter.

His right elbow laid out the governor man on the gridiron, and he made

a lane the length of the crowd so wide that a woman could have carried

a step-ladder through it without striking against anything. All

Mellinger and me had to do was to follow.

“It took us just three minutes to get out of that street around to

military headquarters, where Mellinger had things his own way. A

colonel and a battalion of bare-toed infantry turned out and went back

to the scene of the musicale with us, but the conspirator gang was

gone. But we recaptured the phonograph with honours of war, and marched

back to the _cuartel_ with it playing ‘All Coons Look Alike to Me.’

“The next day Mellinger takes me and Henry to one side, and begins to

shed tens and twenties.

“‘I want to buy that phonograph,’ says he. ‘I liked that last tune it

played at the _soirée_.’

“‘This is more money than the machine is worth,’ says I.

“‘’Tis government expense money,’ says Mellinger. ‘The government pays

for it, and it’s getting the tune-grinder cheap.’

“Me and Henry knew that pretty well. We knew that it had saved Homer P.

Mellinger’s graft when he was on the point of losing it; but we never

let him know we knew it.